ADAM HOLLIOAKE is under serious consideration for England’s World Cup team and could yet be chosen for either the first or second legs of the imminent triangular tournament in Australia. Surrey’s 31-year-old captain, who, in Sharjah in 1997, led England to their first and only one-day tournament victory overseas since Mike Gatting’s team in Australia ten years previously, returned to England a galvanised cricketer last season despite the death of his younger brother, Ben.

His brilliant and free-spirited batting in one-day and four-day cricket for Surrey, after his late start to the season, plus further exciting innings with the bat in the Hong Kong Sixes tournament last month, convinced David Graveney, the chairman of the England selectors, that Hollioake should be restored to the World Cup team. His last appearances in one-day internationals were made during England’s previous and ill-fated campaign at home during the 1999 World Cup.

It is questionable whether Graveney will be able to persuade his co-selectors, notably Duncan Fletcher and Nasser Hussain, to go back to Hollioake immediately, but the matter has been discussed, even though he is not one of the seven “specialist” one-day players in Australia preparing for the start of the tournament with the hosts and Sri Lanka.

The “cabinet” decision will probably be to wait and see how England’s other all-rounders — Andrew Flintoff (if fit) Craig White, Paul Collingwood, Ronnie Irani, Ian Blackwell and Jeremy Snape — fare in the three warm-up matches that follow the third Test, then in the first six matches of the VB Series in Australia that interrupt the Ashes Tests next month. If Flintoff cannot prove his fitness during the next seven days — he is working at the Australian Institute of Sport in Adelaide to overcome the stiffness in the groin region that has troubled him since his hernia operation — Hollioake’s recall may be hastened.

He could even be the means of salvation for Hussain as a ready-made captain should the pressure of the so-far one-sided conflict for the Ashes prove too much. It is unlikely, but Hussain could decide to prolong his Test career by relinquishing the one-day captaincy, or perhaps even by opting out of the World Cup altogether. That would require Hollioake’s return to the one-day team at least for the second leg of the VB Series, starting on January 13. The selectors, though, must name their squad for the World Cup by December 31. The tournament starts on February 9.

Outstanding as Hussain has been as batsman and captain in Test cricket since taking over from Alec Stewart in 1999, it is arguable that Hollioake has proved to be the more effective leader in the limited-overs game. Apart from leading Surrey to three championships in four years and England to success in the tournament with India, Pakistan and West Indies in December 1997, he captained Surrey to victory in the Benson and Hedges Cup in 2001 when Ben, by then preferred as one of the all-rounders in the England squad, was man of the match.

Ben’s death revitalised Adam’s cricket last season in a way that he could not fully explain. After his match- winning century against Sussex in the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy quarter- final at Hove in July, two days after his brother’s funeral, Adam said that he felt that he was not batting by himself as he launched an extraordinary volley of fours and sixes. In the Frizzell County Championship, Surrey’s title success owed much to his almost carefree batting. He hit 24 sixes in his 13 innings, scoring 738 runs at an average of 67.

In his 35 one-day internationals, Hollioake has a better all-round record in all respects except his strike rate of runs per ball than Collingwood, his nearest rival. The young Durham all-rounder has scored 448 runs at 24 and a strike rate of 87 per hundred balls, compared with Hollioake’s 606 runs at 25 with a strike rate of 75. Hollioake’s strike and economy rates for bowling are both superior (his wickets per ball significantly better): he has 32 wickets at 31, claiming a wicket every 37 balls and conceding 5.06 runs an over. Collingwood has only 13 wickets at 45, taking a wicket every 45 balls and conceding 6.04 runs per over. Collingwood is the better fielder, however, one reason why he has kept his place in recent one-day series in a team that has been relatively pedestrian in the field.