Brendon Julian

New Zealand-born Brendon Julian possessed rich talent. At his best, he was a particularly dangerous left arm pace bowler whose height and natural, uncomplicated action allowed him to move the ball both ways as well as to naturally angle it away from right handers with disconcerting variety. When on song, he was also a tremendously hard-hitting batsman, the generally assured technique of whose play renders his timing and execution a pleasure to behold. In a frustrating paradox, these attributes allowed him to produce many excellent performances for his State (and took him to international level even) but yet they also remained unfulfilled on occasions. On their good days, there were few cricketers who struck with more devastating effect. For verification, one needs look no further than the Sheffield Shield finals of 1997-98 and 1998-99, in which his thunderous innings of 124 and 84 respectively played major roles in leading the Warriors to back-to-back titles. Similarly, his consistency and dependability with the ball on Australia's history making tour of the Caribbean in early 1995 were viewed by many as constituting suitable testament to his talent. Even his brave effort in lasting more than two hours at the crease in arduous circumstances to save a floundering Australia from defeat in the 1993 Trent Bridge Test is still very fondly remembered by some. He now presents travel programmes on Channel 9.
John Polack