Cricket: Little Ben shows heart for the fight

Iain Fletcher hears how the axe has merely sharpened a young player's appetite

TWELVE months ago he brought a packed Lord's to its feet with an innings against Australia of sheer joie de vivre. The oldest enemy were ruthlessly and spectacularly dispatched, and it seemed that Ben Hollioake might just be the hero of a new age of English cricket.

But as England finish the Texaco series against South Africa at Headingley today, Hollioake is surplus to requirements and England are back on an all-too familiar search for fulfilment.

Hollioake, 20, has an exceptional talent. His swashbuckling innings at Lord's last year against both Australia and Kent in the Benson and Hedges final confirmed that, and both will long be remembered. Unfazed by the occasion or the opposition he thrilled with the audacity of his strokeplay, and a meteoric rise seemed inevitable.

However, the disaster of the one-day series in the West Indies demanded that changes be made, both tactically and in personnel. Hollioake was one of the casualties, and he did not hear the news from his nearest and dearest. Adam, Ben's elder brother, former landlord and captain of the England one-day side, was unable to inform him.

"I think they wanted Adam to but he couldn't, so in the end David Graveney phoned me to explain why I'd been dropped," Hollioake said as he contemplated South Africa's victory in the first one-day international. "I kind of expected it really because I hadn't produced the form that makes the selectors pick you, but I thought I was one of the better bowlers in the Caribbean.

"We honestly thought we would win the series, even after the defeat in the second match, but we didn't play well. Everyone has got stuck into the bowling, but in Sharjah we scored more runs, or got more value for runs, which makes it easier for the bowlers. There's no need to panic because before that series we'd won about 16 games on the trot, or the majority of them, so we were due a bad run."

Recently moved in to his own house - "the report about Adam kicking me out is a bit of a joke, or at least I think it is" - Hollioake is determined to regain his England place with consistent performances. His nonchalant attitude actually masks a fiercely determined nature.

"I was determined to win before the West Indies but being part of that series that we lost so badly really hurts and just makes you even more determined to bounce back and do well," he said. "Just because I'm laid back about things people think I don't work hard or put the effort in but I do; I just do it quietly and in my own way. I want to score 1,000 runs this year and take 50 wickets, and with it being a long summer for Tests and the triangular one-day tournament I should get back in the side."

Such a positive reaction to being dropped will be welcome to the selectors but probably no surprise to two of them, Messrs Gatting and Gooch, who managed him on last winter's A tour to Kenya and Sri Lanka. The need for two spinners on the dusty wickets placed a lot of responsibility on the selected seamers, of which Hollioake was one. "It makes the seamers really work hard. I opened the bowling and would return when a spinner needed a rest. The key was to bowl tight and consistently," he said. "Mark Ealham hardly bowled so it was a real challenge to perform."

The lessons of bowling on those unforgiving pitches are paying off. Where his bowling was erratic last year, Hollioake has now begun to marshall his his natural attacking instincts, witness his performance at Taunton last week. His 11 first-innings overs brought three wickets and the majority of the 55 runs came from wild slices by the tail.

Largely because of his dramatic entry to the international game, Hollioake has had to cope early on with the off-field demands of being a high-profile sportsman. Allegations in Sri Lanka connecting him with various herbs showed him that life in the public eye is not always easy. Already more wary than last year, Hollioake accepts the attention while remaining aloof from it, no mean feat for one so young. "It's a shame that people are interested in things other than the cricket," he said. "Last year Adam and I were lucky with the press but neither of us really read them or believe the hype anyway. A lot of the good things written about us last year we didn't really deserve."

To acknowledge this suggests an intelligence that his teammates are not that quick to credit him with. In fact, with a long drawn out laugh he is unsure about it himself. "I don't consider myself very bright because at school all I wanted to do was play sport, but I'm streetwise and for my job I don't need to be that intelligent," he said. "I want to win, though; that is the feeling that drives me on. I'm not that bothered by statistics or getting the most of anything, but I am bothered about winning or losing."

Reminiscent in so many ways of a certain I T Botham, Hollioake is rising to the challenge of regaining his England place through hard work and diligence. The next question is how the selectors rise to their challenge of how to coax the best out of a wonderful natural talent.