Bernard Julien: Underachiever on the field; cancer survivor off it

The flamboyant Bernard Julien was born on March 13, 1950. Abhishek Mukherjee looks at the explosive all-rounder that never happened at the top level.

Bernard Denis Julien was the cricketer every schoolboy aspires to be: he played the most dazzling of strokes; he could swing the ball at a brisk pace; when the ball got old he could bowl finger-spin, and even tried his hand at Chinamen; he was electric on the field; he was immensely popular among fans; and his handsome features and Jim Kelly-like hairstyle made him an instant hit with the fairer sex.

He walked back lazily to his bowling mark, often humming a song. In an interview with Sportstar he elaborated: “It was my way of self-motivation. It used to help me concentrate on my next ball. My objective was to get the batsman out. It may have given the batsman the wrong impression that I was relaxed. I used to bowl to the best of my abilities and I always played the game hard.”

Julien ran in from a forty-five degree angle with legs so taut that one feared they might get tangled on his way to the crease, resulting in him toppling over: only that he did not, and kept on bowling a nagging line with variations in pace, bounce, and movement. Writing for Sportstar, Vijay Lokapally called him “an athletic figure of a seamer full of verve and energy”.

He was also one of those marauders who could launch into any bowling attack, and could man any position in the field; he ran very fast, could cover distances very fast, and could throw extremely accurately; had he lived up to his immense potential he would have been the perfect successor to Garry Sobers.

Instead, he never managed to pull off what was expected of him: he showed glimpses of his talent, but 866 runs at 30.92 with two hundreds and 50 wickets at 37.36 hardly bear testimony of Julien’s skills. From 12 ODIs his tally read 18 wickets at 25.72 with an economy rate of 3.57; he played an instrumental role in West Indies’ maiden World Cup victory.

Julien’s First-Class numbers were more impressive: playing mostly for Trinidad & Tobago and Kent Julien finished with 5,790 runs at 24.53 and 483 wickets at 28.71. His international career ended when the likes of Michael Holding, Joel Garner, and Colin Croft came up to join Andy Roberts, and he ended his First-Class career when he decided to go on the rebel tour of 1983-84.
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