Adam Hollioake is proof that splitting the Test and one-day captaincy between two men can work. Now, ten years after he took on half of Michael Atherton’s role, and a day after Michael Vaughan laid aside his own one-day ambitions, the only England captain to win a significant one-day tournament is stepping out of retirement for a few weeks.

Essex confirmed yesterday that Hollioake, the former Surrey all-rounder who captained England to victory in the Champions Trophy in Sharjah in 1997, has signed to play in this year’s Twenty20 Cup. The game against Sussex on Friday will be the first county cricket he has played since retiring three years ago.

“I had lost my motivation and found four-day cricket incredibly boring,” Hollioake said yesterday of his decision to leave the game at the early age of 32. “I could fire myself up for one-day games, and felt the ability was still there, but I just couldn’t maintain focus. My family had been through a lot [after his brother, Ben, was killed in a car crash in 2002] and I wanted to be with them.”

Since leaving the Oval in 2004, Hollioake has been living in Perth and working as a property developer. He returned for the Tsunami Appeal Twenty20 match at the Brit Oval in 2005, in which he took a hat-trick, but it was while playing in a beach cricket tournament on Australia’s Gold Coast in January that he became tempted to make a longer comeback.

“I was playing with Graham Gooch [the Essex coach] and he asked why I had retired so early,” Hollioake said. “I explained that I had business and family commitments in Australia now, but he asked whether I’d consider coming to England just for a month.

“It fits in well with the school holidays, so I’ve brought my family over for a few weeks.” Hollioake’s daughter, Bennaya, is 5, while his son, Addison, had his first birthday yesterday.

Hollioake has been in England for a fortnight, having flown in to take part in a boxing match for the Sparks charity in London, against Eric Rush, the former All Blacks wing. “It was really hard,” Hollioake said of the bout, which he lost on a split points decision. “Rush had been a junior light-heavyweight champion in New Zealand, so I had my hands full. I had to do a lot of training, slimming down from 96kg [about 15 stone] to 85kg for the fight, so at least I’m in good shape.”

He will stay with Essex until the quarter-finals of the Twenty20 Cup on July 18, then fly back to Australia with his family, to return for the finals day at Edgbaston on August 4 if Essex have qualified.

Twenty20 cricket arrived late in Hollioake’s career, but he swiftly flourished at the shortest form of the game, averaging 28.55 at a strike-rate of 148 and taking 36 wickets in 14 matches for Surrey, who won the inaugural final in 2003 and were beaten in the 2004 final by Leicestershire. The fixture list this season means that Surrey play Essex only once, at Chelmsford a week tomorrow.

As well as bringing his own experience, Hollioake will act as a like-for-like replacement for Ravi Bopara, the Essex all-rounder, who strained a thigh muscle on Sunday and will be out for three weeks.

“I played at Lilac Hill with Ravi in January and he looked good,” Hollioake said. He made 38 and Bopara 53 as an England XI lost a one-day friendly to the Cricket Australia Chairman’s XI. “We have a similar style, so I’m disappointed he won’t be available for the first few matches.”