As the Pakistan Cricket Board prepare to finalise their coaching team ahead of the series in the UAE against England, they could do worse than choose their former appointee Julien Fountain as the specialist fielding coach. PakPassion spoke with Julien.

 by Saj Sadiq (6th Dec 2011)

As the Pakistan Cricket Board prepare to finalise their coaching team ahead of the series in the UAE against England, they could do worse than choose their former appointee Julien Fountain as the specialist fielding coach. 

If you don't recognise the name, simply visit his professional website www.catcheswinmatches.com There you will see that he has been linked to elite fielding performances for well over a decade and judging by testimonials from Chris Gayle, Niall O Brien, Shariar Nafees and Jimmy Adams to name but a few, you can see that his resume is one of the most extensive in the world and having fulfilled both Head Coach & Specialist Coach roles, with over 15 years of professional cricket coaching experience, and over 23 years of international sports experience, Fountain is considered by many as a pioneer in the area of "Specialist Fielding Coaching" for cricket.

Julien was the first baseball player to be used as a Specialist Fielding Coach by an ICC full member nation when he joined the West Indies team in 1998. Since then he has coached at two ICC World Cups and has been used by a string of top international, associate & professional teams from around the world including England, West Indies, Pakistan, Bangladesh & the Stanford Superstars.

Speaking exclusively to PakPassion.net ; Fountain, who was hired by Bob Woolmer to act as Specialist Fielding Coach for the Pakistan Team on their tour of England in 2006, stated "I've worked with Pakistani players previously at a variety of levels, so I know what makes them tick and I'm ready to take on the role of fielding coach once again for the PCB. The Pakistan team are definitely an improving unit which is great to see and I feel that I could continue the upward progress they have made recently."

Fountain had also previously worked for the Pakistan Cricket Board in 2001 as assistant and specialist coach for the Pakistan 'A' team on their tour of Sri Lanka under Head Coach Mudassar Nazar. Upon completing the Sri Lanka tour, Fountain accompanied the team back to Pakistan where he was tasked with holding Elite Coaching Clinics at all the major academies including Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Rawalpindi. Fountain also attended a week long camp in Karachi under the guidance of Head Coach Richard Pybus with the senior Pakistan National Cricket Team working with the players prior to their up coming home series. He also held a series of clinics for Pakistan coaches at each of the regional venues.

As well as coaching both full member & associate teams from around the world Fountain has coached at academies such as the ECB National Academy in Loughborough, as well as being the Level 4 "Fielding Instructor & Course Designer" for them. He was the Head coach of the England Under 16 Team when they swept the Australia Under 16 team in 2007. In 2008 Fountain also helped the Stanford Superstars beat England convincingly in Antigua in a one off T20 fixture.

Fountain's most recent assignment was for the Bangladesh Cricket Board where he was employed as the Fielding Coach when they defeated New Zealand 4-0 in a one day series in October last year and then defeated Zimbabwe 3-1 two months later. Fountain's final series with the Bangladesh team was at the World Cup where they defeated Ireland, England and Netherlands. Bangladesh, despite having agreed terms with Fountain, decided to hire a new set of coaches; which was ironic as fielding was the only department that Bangladesh actually seemed to be improving at. So Bangladesh's loss may definitely be Pakistan's gain as Fountain is on a short list of candidates held by the PCB.

Fountain feels that he has the necessary coaching experience and know how to enhance the notoriously weak area of fielding in Pakistan cricket and hopes that the PCB give him another opportunity to work for them. "There seems to be a global trend of hiring former players based on their playing career or their personal relationship to the incumbent Head Coach. There are lots of examples from the USA where successful coaches or managers have not played at the highest level, but are considered excellent."

An area which Fountain would definitely make a difference would be statistical analysis of fielding, as he is the designer of the world’s first Fielding Statistical Analysis Software for Cricket called "DIRECT HIT" which allows for a full breakdown on the fielders performance including runs saved versus runs cost, strike rates, averages and lots more. "Fielders deserve to be held accountable for the good as well as the bad performances based on fact not hearsay. For too long it’s been simply opinion whether a player is good or not, and opinions differ; statistics are black & white fact"

"I've been following the Pakistan side and I like what I see, but there are areas where I feel that I can make a difference to their fielding. There are some things that I feel I can work with them and improve. Cricket is changing, new innovations and ideas are needed sometimes, rather than the tried and tested things and this is where I feel I can make a difference."

Let’s hope the Pakistan Cricket Board use coaching facts & figures, and not simply celebrity status, to make their decisions on the new coaching staff this time around.