Adam Hollioake: Twenty years ago I left cricket. I want to be back | Surrey

Adam Hollioake, mischief never far from the surface, offers a classic one-two punch on why Surrey is so successful. Because we were the best. And the most modest.

He breaks out into his laconic, deep grin. It's good to hear him laugh in the middle of a summer marked by a tragedy that has cast a shadow on English football, especially at the Oval, where the late Graham Thorpe and Hollioake together helped Surrey win seven trophies between 1996 and 2002 .

Hollioake is no stranger to grief. It was the death of his brother, Ben, in a car accident in 2002 that ultimately led to him leaving cricket at the age of 33 and returning to his native Australia.

I have practiced a lot with the internet, it takes some getting used to, he says now, talking from his home in London, where he has lived all summer. It's getting those calls, when someone calls and the moment between realizing this isn't a good call and getting the news seems like an eternity. As soon as I got the call, I knew it was one of those. It brings back memories of others, my brother and [former Surrey wicketkeeper] Graham Kersey and people we've lost along the way.

I was very close to Graham [Thorpe]. We were close when we played, but I became very close to him over the last five or six years and when we were coaching together. One thing that distracts you from your own sadness or emotion is trying to care for others. So I tried to help his wife and children and take responsibility for them. I know Graham would want that.

With his doctorate in grief, Hollioake, he says, has become a master at picking the happy moments. The nice guy that [Thorpe] was, very silly, with a playful sense of humor. The other is the fierce competitor who really held on when the game got close. When the pressure is on and the games are on the line, some people didn't get it, and he was certainly one who did.

He remembers that Thorpe could sometimes be quite distracted when talking to him off the field. He would be fiddling with his bat handle, or a little fidgety. But when they were together in the middle, in the middle of the field and in the middle of the battle, Thorpe was a different man. He would be stuck. He would stare straight into your eyes, quietly spoken but confident, and urge me to stay with him and be there at the end of the game. He was one of my favorite people to hit with.

Twenty years after giving up his playing career, Hollioake has spent the summer as an assistant coach at Surrey, brought back into the fold of Alec Stewart, who is set to step down as the club's cricket director after the club won its third successive County Championship secured. trophy.

It really feels like coming home, he says. Hollioake's early years in Australia were a blur of constant travel, multiple schools and a troubled, peripatetic upbringing. I didn't have a family home growing up because we moved around so much.

When Hollioake arrived in Surrey as a brash young all-rounder in the early 1990s, he discovered the joys of stability. I had the 15 years at Surrey and that was the only consistent one I had. And since graduating from Surrey, I've changed residence a few times and had many different roles and jobs. I walk into the Oval and it's probably the place where I've spent the most time of my life. Just the respect I get when I go there, and how good the people are. It feels like a big family there, so it certainly feels like coming home.

After leaving Surrey to live with his parents in Australia, the former England international embarked on a series of alternative careers. A real estate company collapsed during the global financial crisis that hit in 2007, leaving Hollioake bankrupt. He created a television show, Australia's Greatest Athlete, which ran for three seasons. A period as a professional boxer and then in Mixed Martial Arts followed. Cricket had faded into the background.

I was trying to figure out, Hey, what am I going to do now? What am I? What do I want? Have you heard of that show Through The Keyhole? They came to my house and couldn't find anything related to cricket. They said, We need to plant some stuff because the viewers won't guess whose house this is if we don't have anything. I had no memorabilia in the house. And then I realized it's because I don't want to live in the past. I want to achieve more, because those memories are quite powerful, and if you start living off what you've achieved, you can become a prisoner of your past quite quickly.

He feels like cricket has been taken from him by Ben's death. When my brother died, I felt I should go back to be with my family and care for them. And then I kind of excluded myself from the game and during that time I lost my connection with cricket. I'm still building that back, as a relationship.

I stopped playing cricket 20 years ago and I think that has helped me rebuild my confidence. I like cricket. It gave me everything, the start in life that I needed. So I want to be involved again and I want to see what I can achieve in it again.

Coaching jobs provided a route back to the game, with Queensland, Pakistan, and at the ECB, with both England Lions and the Test side during the ill-fated 2021-2022 Ashes tour, when he was reunited with England batsman Thorpe . coach.

Another of his previous coaching roles included working in the now defunct Afghanistan Premier League, when he came terrifyingly close to a suicide bombing in Kabul.

There was a backpack terrorist. and it blew up nine people. I was between 50 and 100 meters away. It was brutal. But the people were great and it was so important to have cricket in their country. When it happened, my first instinct was: I can't wait to get out of here. And a lot of guys left. But then I thought: no. My dad always told me growing up, stay until the job is done. I wanted to make sure I was safe and they increased security. But it was quite full.

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Hollioake tries to bring the same philosophy to coaching as he does to captaincy and to life in general. In 1995, as a young star with leadership potential at Surrey, Dave Gilbert, then the club's head coach, gave him the book How to Win Friends and Influence People. He said to me: I read it once a year. So I read that book and became fascinated with psychology. I'm a bit of a deep thinker myself and the difference between myself when I'm confident and when I'm not is huge. We spend all that time as players trying to improve by 1%, but the difference between you when you're confident and when you're not confident is over 20%. If you took eleven people who were confident and played them against their clones who were not confident, it would be a whitewash, because confidence is such an integral part of sports.

He refers to the Bazball effect. It takes away the fear of failure, and that happens when you have self-confidence. As a captain, I understood that at a fairly young age, and I certainly incorporated that into my coaching.

We return to the question of how and why Surrey's culture of success continues to flow from its playing days to the here and now.

What struck me is how organized and professional they are. Everyone is so informed and knows what everyone is doing. That's a mix of Alec Stewart and his organizational skills and professionalism and having a permanent team, which is also thanks to Alec. If I look at the one common denominator of the last thirty to forty years, I would say Alec Stewarts has played a pivotal role. Communication is excellent, and it just seems to be a well-oiled unit.

At the beginning of his career, he says, there was virtually no professionalism. In 2004 there was the beginning of a little more science, a little more professionalism, a little more support outside the field. Now you've got a couple of physios, strength and conditioning coaches, psychologists, statisticians, batting coach, five or six assistant coaches and Alec, so the support staff probably numbers at least double figures. We have a great system, we produce a Test cricketer every year. There is a steady stream of Test cricketers coming through our youth system, and good ones at that. We have a large area and are attractive for people to come and play. So when we sign a player, we sign a big player. This season, Surrey played fourteen full England internationals.

Hollioake's current role is temporary, but he would be open to a return. With Stewart set to leave at the end of the campaign to care for his wife, who has cancer, Hollioake says he would be honored to take on a similar role.

I'm beholden to Surrey. I've been away for so long, but I do have a bond with the club. But I have to be the right person for the job, because there are a lot of people who want to do that job, and there will be a lot of good candidates for it. I want what's best for the job, before what's best for me.

Hopefully Alec will choose to remain involved in an advisory role. I know he's not taking on his full role as director of cricket but hopefully he stays and helps guide the next person who takes on the role and passes on some of the wisdom that he has because he's definitely the greatest son of Surrey is.

The most important thing for Hollioake is that, after years of sadness and a search for purpose, cricket is a joy again. I lost the love for the game after my brother died. I stopped enjoying it, but after being away from it for a while, I love it again. It's hard not to like it a lot.

This is an article from Wisden Cricket Monthly. Click here to get over 25% off an annual digital subscription to Wisden Cricket Monthly.