Mark Nicholas: Crown remains on hold for frustrated Hollioake (12 July 1997)

Saturday 12 July 1997

Crown remains on hold for frustrated Hollioake

By Mark Nicholas

FANCY Surrey losing that 60-over game to Nottinghamshire earlier in the week, all that talent going down to all that teamwork. It was thus since the Sixties, say the sceptics about Surrey, and might forever be.

But it should not - and it is a nonsense. Anyway, we were under the impression that Adam Hollioake, new captain and briefly new hero of English cricket during late May, was supposed to straighten things out. He led England A by example and with tough definition on their storming mission through Australia in the winter; surely the summer with Surrey against softbellied county sides would not interrupt the lad`s glossy progress.

Not so, for Surrey`s indecent inconsistencies are eating away at Hollioake the elder and the frustration is niggling away at his game. He is within cricket`s greatest dichotomy; to be bowled or not to be bowled; to trust your instinct or to play by the rules. It is from the result of these decisions that special men and special teams arise to be crowned. During the last year Hollioake has arisen, the crown is still waiting.

He is lucky, amid the wake and post mortem of Wednesday`s let-down, to have another chance to crown so soon. The Benson and Hedges Cup is the hardest one-day competition and were Surrey to triumph today - and especially against a nicely gnarled and more likely looking Kent - Hollioake will deserve the freedom of the Oval, just for a day or two, in recognition of the mind job he will have done on his temperamental team.

These gifted and enjoyable cricketers must clear the decks of depression and remind themselves that they must do the simple and obvious well, before the complicated and glamorous can be embraced. At least this is what Hollioake, a nugget of a cricketer himself, must get through to them.

If you have not heard by now, the Hollioake family go back five generations in Ballarat, the gold mining town outside Melbourne, where great uncle Rex bowled out Tom Graveney when the MCC were touring in 1955. The boys` father, John, was a good club player who might have been rather better had he not been so devoted to ensuring a smooth path for the boys, and whose life as an engineer brought him to England, where the boys settled.

Adam went to school at St George`s, Weybridge, then, eventually, to Millfield; all frightfully English. Our cricket came from the English system, Adam has said, "and though my blood may not be English, I feel a great pride when I represent this country".

Which is fine and good to hear, but not the point. His blood is the point, it is what makes him different. It is why he should be playing for England now, not talking about it. He is a terrific, potentially heroic cricketer because his blood is a potent mix of Australian adventure and Australian never-say-die.

His batting is a combination of free spirit and steely nerve; his bowling a display of irresistible varieties. He is Steve Waugh to Ben`s Mark and is as good a batsman now, at 25, as Steve Waugh was when the Australian selectors persevered with him in the mid-Eighties, if not quote so advanced as the 24-year-old Waugh who scattered the English bowling here in 1989.

Two years ago, when he captained for the first time against Hampshire, I thought him the most innovative, perceptive and uncompromising captain, after Mike Brearley and Dermot Reeve, that I had played against. Last summer he averaged 70 with the bat and was the leading wicket-taker in the Sunday League. This year he is nowhere near such form; don`t say that the captaincy of Surrey isn`t getting to him.

"County captaincy is draining, and at first mentally unsettling," says the chairman of selectors and manager of last winter`s A tour, David Graveney, "and all that ability at Surrey not quite achieving what is expected of it will frustrate Adam. He is a gambler by nature and the odd failed gamble this summer may affect his captaincy confidence. I suspect, too, that he has found it more difficult than he imagined to turn from being one of the lads into being the boss of his contemporaries."

Having said that, Hollioake is to lead England`s `sixes` team in Hong Kong late in September and were Michael Ather- ton not to go to Sharjah for the tournament before Christmas, Graveney would almost certainly want Hollioake as captain. Premature promotion, perhaps, but there is no point in this bold and convincing talent being left to fester.

The routine of county cricket has put out the fire in many professional cricketers; Hollioake is a different kettle and Graveney is keen to see him boil.

First, though, he must ensure that Surrey do the boil- ing on today`s grand occasion and that they are a team behind their captain, not individuals with a private agenda. For some time now the game has labelled them the `Surrey Strutters` and good on them if they perform to their ability. If not their strut will be covered by egg.

When Graveney told Hollioake that he was not playing in the first Test at Edgbaston, Hollioake looked him square in the eye and said: "The most important quality in an individual is the way he bounces back from adversity." A revealing thought indeed.

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