Adam in shape to go the distance for Ben

14 April 2012

Adam Hollioake has travelled a long way in the last 18 months, from the grief of losing his brother Ben in a car crash to the joy of becoming a father for the first time, but his longest journey is yet to come.

The Surrey captain sets out tomorrow on a 2,000-mile trek from Edinburgh to Tangiers to raise money for the Ben Hollioake Fund, the charity established in his younger brother's name.

Most county cricketers are looking forward to a well-earned break as the autumn leaves turn to brown, but Hollioake has never been one to rest on his laurels. As intense and driven as his brother was languid and laid back, he hopes to raise £5million in the next five years to build a hospital for terminally ill children.

Hollioake's success as a cricketer has been based on his all-round ability, whether it be his clean-hitting strokeplay, straightforward seam bowling or sharp thinking in the field, so it seems appropriate his epic adventure will test a variety of skills.

By the time he rows into Tangiers on 23 November the 32-yearold will have spent almost two months walking, sailing and cycling through England, France and Spain, making the day-to-day grind of first-class cricket seem like a breeze. Hollioake will spend 28 days walking from Edinburgh to Brighton before setting sail for Dieppe on 1 November, where he will begin a gruelling bike ride to Gibraltar. He will then row the final leg to Morocco.

He said: "It's going to be real hard but it's a great challenge. I've never been interested in doing the bog-standard stuff and wanted to do something different. If we said we were going to walk to the pub I don't think we'd have got much attention. If you're going to do it you may as well do it properly and we wanted to catch people's imagination.

"It'll be physically challenging but the mental aspect is even harder because of the boredom of it all. I'll be walking from 9am to 5pm most days."

The Hollioake brothers were often painted as opposing characters and cricketers, with Ben's carefree talent contrasting with his brother's more studied application, but Adam seems to have adopted his younger sibling's attitude-to training. He said: "I've hardly prepared at all as I couldn't really stop playing cricket and walk for five hours a day. You can't practise that sort of thing and have to just go out there and do it. I can't do any cycling because by the time that stage comes around I'll have been walking for a month and I've never done any rowing in my life."

Hollioake's extraordinary willingness to put his body to the test springs from two interlocking motives: the hope that something good should come from his tragic loss and a desire to safeguard his brother's memory. The former England all-rounder is still used as a source of inspiration in the Surrey dressing-room, the family gather together and watch videos and when the children's hospital is eventually established it will bear his name. Hollioake said: "I want something to stand for Ben for a period of time. He's not with us anymore and I want to build something in his memory. He'd have gone on to do great things in his lifetime and I want to do something in his name now.

"If Ben was here he'd probably be barracking me, saying I was mad, but we're going to try to raise this money. I'm spending more time on fundraising than playing cricket which shows how important it is to me. We want to make a huge difference to people's lives. There's no point us doing all this hard work, raising the money, and spending it on a party. We want something good to come out of something bad."

Hollioake will be joined by his family, Lancashire batsman Iain Sutcliffe and British boxer Scott Welsh - both personal friends of Ben - for the entire journey, with sporting celebrities such as Andrew Flintoff, Sir Bobby Robson and Dion Dublin lending their support along the way.

He added: "When something tragic happens your outlook on life changes. You realise how important your family and friends are and tell them what you feel about them while you have the chance. The most important thing is being a good person, while your job, money and fame don't matter.

"This project has reaffirmed my faith in humankind. There are a lot of bad people out there but a hell of a lot more good people. Most of the time you go through life thinking that people are arseholes, so it's nice to realise there's a good side to most people."

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