Peter Roebuck: All play and no work in raising of Hollioake (1 June 1997)

Sunday 1 June 1997

All play and no work in raising of Hollioake

By Peter Roebuck

BY all accounts Ben Hollioake enjoyed the sort of boyhood to be expected from a youngster with sport in his head and adventure in his mind. For some fellows a classroom can be a cage. The attractions of quadratic equations are quite lost upon them. Hollioake ran free, not to say wild, studied as little as possible and involved himself in all manner of scrapes.

Nor did authority gaze benevolently upon him. His custom of treating dormitories as if they were sports fields and fields as if they were battle grounds was not universally popular. It was all ideal preparation for the challenge of playing cricket against the Australians.

Several attempts were made to educate him but none can be considered an entire success. He was too headstrong, too argumentative, too fearless to fit easily into the scholastic world. As Dean Cosker, who shared a dormitory with Hollioake junior for a couple of years and survived to bowl left-arm spin for Glamorgan, puts it: "School wasn`t his natural environment. He wasn`t going to `uni`. He belongs to the great outdoors."

It is not that Hollioake was especially troublesome, merely that he fell out with teachers and authority in general. Nor did he hide his disdain for those he could not respect. But he was not the sort to squeak his way out of such spots of bother as occurred.

As has been documented, Ben spent the first and latter parts of his rearing among Australians, ending at Wesley College in Perth where the coach, Brian Gidney, promised Hollioake`s splendid mother that "by the time I`ve finished kicking him he`ll be a cricketer." And so it proved. Between the ages of 11 and 15, though, the offspring was stationed in England, his father`s oil interests having brought the family hither. His elder brother had spent his formative years in a boarding school run by Christian Brothers in the country areas of New South Wales. Probably it was the sort of education a Hollioake needs, rugby, boxing and friendships forged in the fire.

It was to be Ben`s fate to spend his crucial years in the tamer atmosphere of an English boarding establishment. At first he attended a school in Surrey, near the family home, which allowed his folks to keep a wary eye upon him, a necessary precaution. By no means were the Hollioake parents the doting type. They cheerfully admit to raising their beloved sons with oldfashioned vigour.

Staying in Weybridge also kept Ben under the influence of an elder brother whose grit and belligerence he respected. Not that solemnity or sobriety held any great appeal for Adam either. A fellow has to live. He was not beyond putting king prawns in team-mates` batting gloves while playing for England Schools. Here was a brother to follow into heaven or hell.

Soon, though, the time came to send the boy to Edgarley Hall in Glastonbury, a feeder for Millfield whose sporting prowess was acknowledged. Sending Ben away was a risk but this was an opportunity not to be missed. Hollioake duly bedded down at Glastonbury where he fell under the stewardship of Bryan Lobb, a friendly, pipepuffing former Somerset paceman whose batting, running between wickets and fielding had about them the tempo of the cart and horse. Lobb recalls that his charge "knew he was good - and he was".

At 13 Hollioake graduated to Millfield, teaming up with Cosker, who says he was "outgoing and friendly but inclined to get on the wrong side of teachers. He had a bit of arrogance and it was the same with his cricket. I saw it as confidence and daring." Cosker adds that he was "always trying to impress. He doesn`t like to be tied down."

Hollioake`s desire to impress suggests that his confidence is thinner than might be supposed from his manner. Perhaps it was the reaction of a youngster who grew up in the shadow of an admired brother, trying to locate himself and relying upon a potent mixture of deed and show. Adam wanted to prove himself to the world, Ben wanted to fight it.

But it was time to leave. Hollioake`s parents wanted to keep closer tabs on him. The family returned to Australia and the son was sent to Wesley where they have ways of dealing with boys of this sort, disciplining them without disillusioning them so that life remains after the rough edges have been removed.

Ben is not as powerful or as settled a character as his brother, upon whose shoulders responsibility fell early. But he is gifted, likeable and full of intrepid spirit. Adolescent emotion can sometimes still be detected in his eyes yet it is fading and soon there will emerge a cricketer and a man of substance.

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