Julien Fountain
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| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Julien Fountain |
| Born | 25 July 1970 Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex, England |
| Nickname | Jules, The Professor, The Baseball Guy |
| Height | 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) |
| Batting | Right-handed |
| Bowling | Right-arm off break |
| Role | Coach |
Source: Cricinfo | |
Julien Fountain (born 25 July 1970) is an English professional cricket coach and former Great Britain baseball player. He is known primarily as a specialist fielding coach but has also performed the roles of head coach and assistant coach. He has worked on the coaching staffs of the West Indies, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and England and has coached at 36 test matches, 106 ODIs, and 28 T20 Internationals. He also coaches in domestic or franchise cricket and was part of the BPL Winning Dhaka Gladiators coaching staff in 2012.
Fountain was the first baseball player to be used as a Specialist Fielding Coach by any test-level cricket team when he was hired in 1998 by the West Indies to coach on their tour of South Africa.[1]
During the 2010 Micromax ODI series against Zimbabwe, Fountain was appointed temporary head coach of Bangladesh, for the 3rd and 4th ODI's, whilst Jamie Siddons attended the birth of his second child back in Australia. This made Fountain the first baseball coach to achieve head coach status with an ICC full-member nation cricket team.[citation needed]
Playing career
[edit]Cricket
[edit]Fountain was born in Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex, and started his cricket career as a medium pace all-rounder (he later switched to wicketkeeping because he preferred fielding) for Somerset within their youth development teams. He was selected to play in the Somerset Under 19 team aged only 15 due to an injury to the regular wicketkeeper. He was removed from the squad at the end of the season in 1987.
Baseball
[edit]He decided to take up baseball, having watched the 1987 World Series between the Minnesota Twins and the St. Louis Cardinals. In July 1988 Fountain was selected to represent Great Britain U19 Baseball Team at the European Championships in Bordeaux, France. The following year he made his debut for the full Great Britain National Baseball Team, aged 19. He represented Great Britain, as part of the British Olympic Squad in the European Baseball Championships in 1989 in Paris, France, and again in 1991 in Rome, Italy. Fountain represented Great Britain as a pitcher between 1988 and 2002.[2]
In 1989, Fountain played as part of the British Olympic Baseball Team versus an MLBPA – Major League Players Alumni Legends team at Old Trafford Cricket Ground. The Legends team was composed of Bert Campaneris, Doug DeCinces, Bob Feller, Mark Fidrych, Tim Foli, George Foster, Jerry Grote, Mike Hargrove, Tug McGraw, Graig Nettles, Lary Sorensen, Willie Stargell, Rennie Stennett, Luis Tiant, Roy White, Billy Williams, and Al Oliver.
In 2002, he was recalled to the Great Britain Baseball Team during a qualification tournament in Stockholm, Sweden.
England youth teams and County Cricket
[edit]In 1996, having returned to his hometown of Taunton, he was approached by the British Baseball Federation to assist with a cricket course run by the NCA or National Cricket Association which is now known as the England and Wales Cricket Board. This course was organized by ECB National Coach Gordon Lord, who involved him with the coaching of England youth teams.[citation needed] He became the official ECB Fielding Specialist Coach for all the England youth teams and coached players such as Andrew Flintoff, Chris Read, Ben Hollioake, Graeme Swann, Michael Carberry, and Owais Shah. He also coached the England women's cricket team.[citation needed] Fountain coached County Cricket teams between 1996 and 1998, holding fielding clinics both pre, mid and post season.[citation needed]
International coaching
[edit]In 1998 Fountain was appointed by the West Indies Cricket Board to coach The West Indies 'A' Team in Antigua. He was then asked to accompany the full West Indies cricket team on their tour of South Africa and was retained as part of the West Indies back room staff under head coach Malcolm Marshall. He accompanied the West Indies Cricket team to the UK for the Cricket World Cup. Test series versus Australia and South Africa followed.
In 2006, he was hired by Bob Woolmer to act as specialist fielding coach for the Pakistan national cricket team on their tour of England. During the tour his role as specialist fielding coach was reduced to allow greater input into the team's batting performance. He worked with players such as Inzamam-ul-Haq, Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, and Shahid Afridi.[citation needed]
In early 2009, Fountain was appointed as "Specialist Fielding Coach" to the Irish cricket team, under former West Indies Cricketer, Phil Simmons, during their World Cup Qualifying Tournament in South Africa. Ireland won the tournament, which they had previously never achieved and retained their ODI status.[citation needed]
It was announced by the BCB that Fountain had joined the coaching and support staff of the Bangladesh Cricket Team. Bangladesh beat New Zealand 4-0 during the Micromax ODI Series in October 2010. This was the first time Bangladesh has had a series win over a full-strength, Test-playing nation in its 10-year history and subsequently rose to 8th place in the ODI rankings, above West Indies and into the elite top group of teams.[citation needed] This was followed in December 2010 by a 3–1 series win over Zimbabwe. As well as handling the fielding, Fountain took a role in both batting & bowling coaching whilst working with Bangladesh.[citation needed] During the 2010 micromax home series against Zimbabwe, Fountain was temporarily awarded head coach status, whilst Jamie Siddons attended the birth of his second child back in Australia. This was for the third ODI at Sher-e-bangla National stadium in Dhaka, which Bangladesh won[3]
Fountain was part of the coaching staff for the Bangladesh National Cricket Team during the ICC Cricket World Cup. They were knocked out at the group stage.
After the World Cup had finished, Australia toured Bangladesh playing a 3 match ODI series, which Australia won 3–0.
In 2012 Fountain was hired as specialist fielding coach by the Dhaka Gladiators, a franchise team that plays in the Bangladesh Premier league. He helped them get to the final where they beat the Barisal Burners to win the inaugural BPL.[citation needed]
In March 2012 Fountain was appointed as specialist fielding coach for Pakistan, and was based at the National Cricket Academy in Lahore, Pakistan. At the Asia Cup 2012 in Bangladesh, Pakistan beat Bangladesh in the final and won the Asia Cup. At the ICC T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka, Pakistan were beaten by Sri Lanka in the semi-finals.
In 2014 Fountain was hired as head coach of South Korea who hosted the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea.[4] The T20 Cricket tournament was played at the Yeonhui Cricket Ground. Korea played three games during the tournament, against Malaysia, China, and Sri Lanka. They made it into the quarter-finals where they were beaten by Sri Lanka.[5]
Switch Hit 20
[edit]In January 2015, Fountain launched a project in the USA designed to help former professional baseball players make the transition to playing T20 Cricket.[6] In February 2015, Fountain was invited to join the Honorary Advisory Board of the American Cricket Federation.[citation needed]
Fountain has written articles on fielding, cricket, baseball and coaching. He has been featured on a range of sports television and radio shows, across the world.[citation needed]
External links
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Good move by Windies Board" Cricinfo retrieved 3 November 2009
- ^ "Julien Fountain" (PDF). Great Britain Baseball Scorers Association. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 October 2011. Retrieved 2 November 2009.
- ^ "Siddons leaves for Australia" Dhaka Mirror retrieved 04/04/2011
- ^ "Fountain moulds Asian Games Host's". SportAsia.com. Archived from the original on 14 December 2014.
- ^ Peter, Rutherford. "Baseball switch a boon for South Korea". Reuters. Archived from the original on 29 January 2016.
- ^ Paul, Rhys. "T20 takes off:Baseball fuels cricket's rise". CNN.