A moving Kenyan tale

"If it weren't for cricket, could we have this meeting here? You play the game, you get education, because of this cricket." These words are spoken by a village elder towards the end of the film Warriors. It may seem a touch saccharine, a heart-warming Hollywood resolution to an independent documentary about the transformative power of sport, but it should be noted that the lines are delivered unscripted in Maasai amid discussions about a profound cultural change within the community. Cricket, once again, beyond a boundary.

The story of the Maasai Cricket Warriors has been told periodically over recent years, ever since word began to spread of a group of men playing the game while wearing tribal dress in Kenya's Great Rift Valley. Warriors shifts the focus slightly, presenting the development of the team and their journey to play in the Last Man Stands World Championship at Lord's, alongside more serious issues of gender inequality and the transmission of HIV/AIDS among the Maasai.

A lack of kit and facilities, having to walk two hours to the ground - these are everyday problems for the likes of Sonyanga, the team's captain, and his brother Chris. There are more significant battles that need fighting. It is principally the matter of female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice that involves circumcising girls as young as eight or nine, that the Maasai Cricket Warriors have taken a stance against, leading to the summit with the elders that provides the film's coda.

In cricket's traditional centres, the game has a reputation for conservatism, an image of stuffed suits and privilege - CLR James' "old school tie" - not to mention scandal. But this is a progressive, even revolutionary tale. The young men from different villages who formed a team when a South African named Aliya Bauer decided to teach mini-cricket while working on a research project north of Mount Kenya have grown into powerful advocates for change.

The implications of FGM, or "the cut", include early marriage and pregnancy, depriving girls of an opportunity for schooling, as well as increased risk of contracting HIV. Sonyanga and his team-mates have used cricket as a tool to promote greater equality between Maasai men and women. As Ngumba John Njuguna, headmaster at Il Polei school, says, the "cricket warriors are… the next elders", and that is a reason for hope.

There are hopes and dreams of a recognisably sporting variety on display, too. Chris, the team's allrounder, says he "didn't sleep that night" when he heard he was going to the UK. The players embark on extra training - largely consisting of push-ups, laps of the playing field, and dropping a number of high catches - and prepare for the worldwide media attention that inevitably accompanies a team that bats and bowls with naked torsos and headdresses rather than helmets. Sonyanga and Daniel, a fan of "chin music", discuss technique for bowling the "perfume delivery", one that makes the opposing batsman "smell the leather".

Several of them, says Bauer, had "never ever gone beyond the outskirts of Nanyuki, forget about Nairobi" but the trip to England was character-building as well as eye-opening, and their experiences in the 2013 Last Man Stands competition - which included some notable triumphs and the odd disastrous run-out - helped give Sonyanga and his team-mates the courage to speak up about issues outside of sport once they returned home. As the Maasai saying goes, "The eye that leaves the village sees further."

The global cricket village can also consider itself a little better informed. Warriors is directed by former ECB video jockey Barney Douglas and has had support from James Anderson, who gets an executive-producer credit and also briefly features; the film is now on general release in the UK and continues a recent trend for thought-provoking cricket documentaries that explore the game's place in the modern world, from Out of the Ashes to Death of a Gentleman.

The Maasai Cricket Warriors, with their wide-smiling, long-limbed enthusiasm for the game and taboo-busting gender agenda, deserve an extended moment in the spotlight. This is a beautifully shot, genuinely moving story, with a soulful soundtrack and some superb animation. It is another compelling configuration of cricket's capacity to cross borders and boundaries. As Chris puts it: "It is now time to prove that we are the great hero, the lion in the desert, and they say the lion has just woken up."

Warriors
Directed by Barney Douglas
Heavy Soul Films
85 mins, 2015