The West In­dies crick­et lega­cy is of­ten de­fined by the speed of fast bowlers–Wes Hall, Char­lie Grif­fith, Andy Roberts, Michael Hold­ing, Joel Gar­ner, Mal­colm Mar­shall, Col­in Croft, Curt­ly Am­brose, Court­ney Walsh, Ian Bish­op–and the el­e­gant bril­liance of its top-or­der bats­men–Vi­vian Richards, Bri­an Lara, Gor­don Greenidge, Gar­ry Sobers, Frank Wor­rell, Clive Wal­cott, Ever­ton Weekes, Ro­han Kan­hai and Clive Lloyd, to name a few.

Yet, the foun­da­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty of the gold­en era rest­ed equal­ly on the shoul­ders of less flam­boy­ant, im­mense­ly ver­sa­tile play­ers. We re­cent­ly mourned the pass­ing of one such cor­ner­stone, the Trin­bag­on­ian all-rounder (left arm medi­um fast, left arm un­ortho­dox spin, and right-hand bat­ter) Bernard De­nis Julien, who died at the age of 75. His qui­et ded­i­ca­tion and bal­anced skill set served as a crit­i­cal pil­lar for the re­gion, both in the field and, cru­cial­ly, in de­vel­op­ing fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

Born on March 13, 1950, in Care­nage, his foun­da­tion was laid at St Mary's Col­lege in Port-of-Spain, which paved the way for his seam­less tran­si­tion in­to First-Class crick­et for Trinidad and To­ba­go and Kent, where he quick­ly es­tab­lished him­self as a play­er of unique val­ue. His first-class ca­reer spanned 195 match­es, yield­ing 5,790 runs at an av­er­age of 24.53 and 483 wick­ets at 28.71. His high­est First-Class score was 127, and his best bowl­ing was nine wick­ets for 97 runs.

Julien’s rise to the Test are­na was rapid, de­but­ing in 1973 against Eng­land in the first Test at the Oval in Lon­don. He scored 11 and 23 on de­but and took two wick­ets for 49 runs, in­clud­ing Ge­off Boy­cott caught be­hind by Deryck Mur­ray for 97. The West In­dies won the match by 158 runs. In his third Test match at Lords, Julien scored his maid­en Test cen­tu­ry, 121 off 127 de­liv­er­ies, and shared a 155-run part­ner­ship with his hero, Sobers, who made an un­beat­en 150. Cap­tain Kan­hai al­so made 157 runs. The West In­dies de­clared eight wick­ets for 652 runs. Julien took three wick­ets for 69 runs in Eng­land’s sec­ond in­nings as the West In­dies can­tered to vic­to­ry by an in­nings and 226 runs. His sec­ond Test cen­tu­ry, 101, came against Pak­istan in the sec­ond Test at Karachi, Pak­istan, in 1975.

In all, Julien played 24 Tests, scor­ing 866 runs at an av­er­age of 30.92, in­clud­ing two cen­turies and three fifties. He took 50 wick­ets at an av­er­age of 37.36, with a ca­reer-best 5 for 57 against Eng­land in the third Test at Kens­ing­ton Oval, Bar­ba­dos, in 1974. His fi­nal Test was the third Test against Pak­istan in 1977 in George­town, Guyana.

Julien was a mem­ber of Clive Lloyd’s squad that won the in­au­gur­al Crick­et World Cup in 1975. He made his im­pact with four wick­ets for 20 runs against Sri Lan­ka in the group stages, fol­lowed by four wick­ets for 27 runs against New Zealand in the se­mi-fi­nal. In the fi­nal against Aus­tralia, he con­tributed a cru­cial 26 not out off 37 balls as the West In­dies clinched their first ti­tle. He played 12 One Day In­ter­na­tion­als (ODIs), tak­ing 18 wick­ets at an av­er­age of 25.72.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, he was a mem­ber of the rebel West In­dies tour to apartheid South Africa in 1982–83. At a time when the world stood unit­ed in boy­cotting the racist regime, the de­ci­sion by Julien and the oth­er West In­dies play­ers led to a life­time ban from of­fi­cial West In­dies crick­et by the re­gion­al gov­ern­ing body. Al­though the ban was lat­er re­scind­ed in some ter­ri­to­ries, the con­tro­ver­sy ef­fec­tive­ly end­ed his in­ter­na­tion­al play­ing days.

Fol­low­ing his play­ing ca­reer, Julien ded­i­cat­ed him­self to nur­tur­ing the next gen­er­a­tion through coach­ing, no­tably with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) Crick­et Pro­gramme. His con­tri­bu­tions to the game, both on the field for the West In­dies and Trinidad and To­ba­go and off it as a men­tor, have left an in­deli­ble mark. May he rest in peace.