England: Reeve the answer to Hollioake dilemma (12 April 1998)

Sunday 12 April 1998

Reeve the answer to Hollioake dilemma

By Scyld Berry

ADAM Hollioake is facing his first crisis, and with him England's prospects for the World Cup in 13 months' time. Either he can lose confidence and the England one-day captaincy, or return to the drawing-board with Dermot Reeve and bounce back this summer.

Apart from being Somerset's coach, Reeve is "the one-day master" in the words of Graham Thorpe, who was in England's last World Cup party to see Reeve's frustrated attempts at breathing life into their campaign. He is at any rate the best brain England have to call on for one-day purposes, and should be co-opted under the overall coaching of David Lloyd, who has quite enough Test cricket on his plate.

A sheer lack of one-day nous was primarily what caused the bottom to fall out of England's series in the West Indies. They outplayed the home side in the first two games, and could have sealed the series in St Vincent if they had more experience of one-day internationals to call on than Hollioake's nine games before the series, and Lloyd's career total of eight.

In Sharjah, on flat - if slow - batting pitches, three specialist batsmen and a gaggle of all-rounders were enough to score match-winning totals; and thanks to Nick Knight they got by in Barbados. But in St Vincent, where the ball did not quite come on and turned, it was plain naive to pick so little specialist batting.

The selection of Ben Hollioake at No 3 was particularly suspect as he contributed to the fall of early wickets and exposed his brother too soon for the good of his stiff technique. Being saddled with the Surrey and England one-day captaincy so early in his career - he is still only 26 - has deflected Adam from his own game, but he must find the time to work on it, preferably with a lighter bat. Picking an old plodder like Mike Atherton instead of Ben Hollioake might well have lost England the game which they did win, but could have turned the third and fourth internationals in their favour.

England's lack of a specialist second spinner was an important handicap, especially after Barbados: when Ashley Giles had to withdraw, Phil Tufnell should have stayed. Batting against spin is another of Reeve's fortes, and it was missed when England were tied down by the West Indian twirlers, then got themselves out by trying to hit boundaries. Working spin into gaps will be crucial in the World Cup when England are in the same group as India and Sri Lanka, and every qualifying game contributes to the semi-final draw.

As he still has a hundred or two fewer one-day caps than the captains of other countries, Hollioake has plenty more to learn. He established a basic formula in Sharjah, opening the bowling with Dougie Brown and Dean Headley, following with Robert Croft and Mark Ealham, and finishing with Matthew Fleming and himself: as they had played a dozen internationals between them, this was a sensible way of settling eveyone down. But from now on he must be more flexible.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)