Julien Fountain

Who is Julien Fountain?

Julien Fountain is an English professional cricket coach and former Great Britain Olympic Baseball player. He has coached a wide range of both domestic and international, professional cricket teams including West Indies, Pakistan, Bangladesh and England as both a Specialist Fielding coach or as a utility / assistant coach.

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. On the 2000/01 West Indies tour of Australia he took to the field as twelfth man for the West Indies during their fixture against the Prime Ministers eleven at the Manuka Oval in Canberra. He rose to the challenge by running out Anthony McQuire with a direct hit from the boundary In 2008 he was selected to help coach the Stanford Superstars, a privately funded cricket team set up by billionaire cricket enthusiast Allen Stanford, who beat England in a one off T20 game for 20 million US dollars during the Stanford Super Series.

He is a UKCC ECB Level 3 coach and is a T20 specialist, covering "Baseball Style" power batting mechanics, slower balls and elite fielding skills. In 2010, whilst in Bangladesh, Fountain and Ian Pont used their baseball / cricket backgrounds to devise a completely new slower ball called the "Projapoti" or "Butterfly Ball", so called because of the way it behaves in flight. He also launched an elite training program for fielders named S.P.A.C.E, which is an acronym of Safety, Power, Accuracy, Choice, Excellence which are its fundamental principles. In 2010 Fountain trialled his Fielding Analysis Software for the ICC High performance department, and also with Bangladesh. The final product is due to be released before the end of 2011.