Heroic Hollioake charges again

Kent 374 and 174-6 v Surrey 225

The astonishing deeds of Adam Hollioake continued apace yesterday. The Surrey captain produced another exhilarating innings, to follow his sensational feat at Hove in midweek, which ensured that Surrey escaped the follow-on, albeit by one run.

Kent still managed to widen the gap to something more akin to a gulf, although their initial attempts to build on their 149-run advantage ended in failure, David Fulton and Ed Smith falling cheaply. Andrew Symonds, with 51, and Robert Key patched things up with a 97-run stand. Surrey began to lean more heavily on their spin duo of Ian Salisbury and Saq-lain Mushtaq, who had done so much damage first time around, and further wickets fell, though Key resisted until rain ended play prematurely.

He dug in with an unbeaten 63 to further underline his credentials as a high-class opener of the sort England have lost to a broken thumb. He alone was able to deal with swing and seam, and then showed equal ability against the wiles of Surrey's spinners.

But it was Hollioake, handi-capped by a chipped bone in a finger of his left hand, who stole the limelight with his first Championship century for three years. He emerged with his midweek deeds still rumbling around the ground as fans marvelled at the way he had blasted the bejasus out of Sussex in the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy last Wednesday, with a quickfire hundred off 59 balls.

This time Hollioake single-handedly hammered the hell out of the Kent attack to continue an incredible run with the bat since he returned to action just a month ago. He arrived at the crease with the ball swinging in the heavy atmosphere and the Champ-ionship leaders in all sorts of trouble at 59 for 5. Three wickets had fallen in the space of 12 balls after Surrey resumed on their overnight 20 for 1.

Hollioake has lately shown attacks little mercy and not much more respect. The death of his brother Ben has given the older Hollioake a renewed perspective on life and cricket. The results are there for all to see. He had passed 50 in his three previous Championship innings.

He did so again yesterday, reaching the landmark with his second six in what was for him a circumspect 54 balls, but one of his sixes resulted in an 89-year-old woman being struck on the chest and having to go to hospital. The lady, a Kent supporter from Sheppey, returned none the worse for the mishap and was later presented with the offending missile by Hollioake, but her hospitalisation meant she missed a fair bit of the action.

There were two more sixes (both off the left-arm spinner Min Patel) before lunch, then after the interval, between the departures of Saqlain and James Ormond, came Holli-oake's fifth big hit. By now Surrey were nine down and still needed 41 to wriggle off the Kent hook. With last man Ed Giddins at the other end Hollioake had to engineer the strike before exploding into action once more.

He pulled and drove a couple of fours off Martin Saggers, then had his first slice of luck, chopping the next ball past his leg stump. It went to the boundary and took Hollioake to his hundred. Another six and another four took the total in the over to 22.

Giddins stole a single, giving Hollioake the strike. He hit another four, his 14th, followed by his seventh and last six, an uppercut over third man which saved the follow-on, and that was that. Giddins fell in Saggers' next over. Hollioake's unbeaten 122 means he has now scored 317 runs in four Championship innings to date and he has done so in 313 deliveries – better than a run a ball – and 234 of those runs have come in boundaries, with 15 sixes and 36 fours.