In an exclusive interview with Headstrong: An Innings With, former England international Adam Hollioake talks about his brother Ben and dealing with the tragedy that struck.
You can listen to the full interview with Adam Hollioake on the Headstrong podcast, available to listen to on all the usual podcast hosting platforms. Headstrong: An Innings With supports the Ruth Strauss Foundation and is exclusively previewed by Wisden.com.
The elder Hollioake brother spoke in detail about going through the stages of grief and coming out stronger after his brother’s death. Ben Hollioake, his younger brother and Surrey and England teammate, died in a car crash in 2002 in Australia at the age of 24.
“It’s a topic which I feel like at various times I could give you a straight answer,” Hollioake says, “but the answer I’ll give you now is it constantly changes and it is constantly evolving. How I dealt with the day my brother died compared to how I deal with it now is completely different and how I am handling it now is brilliant. If I tried to behave this way the day after he died, it wouldn’t work. There are stages you need to go through. Not coming back or returning to the season for like two and a half months, something like that. I took that time out.”
The former Surrey captain goes on to say that he could only focus on the negative aspect of the loss for nearly 10 years, before it suddenly dawned upon him that he was focusing on a “five-minute period in his life”.
“For 24 years we had the most amazing memories. We had times other brothers don’t get to experience. Why am I focusing on the moment he died? It doesn’t make sense. So that was sort of the first phase. Just recently, I have gone again, I mean I spoke about it the other day: kind of like we owe it to people who die to carry on and be the best version of ourselves that we are because, we are still in the game, we are still alive.
“If we allow it to defeat us, and we don’t be the best version of ourselves, we are kind of not doing justice to that person who died. The last thing anyone would want is to die and for people who they love to then become a shadow of themselves. They want you to strive and go on and do great things. I have likened it to a game of cricket. Imagine if we lost four wickets for 10 runs, and I just thought of going to grief and give up, because we are not in a good place.. I am still in the game, I am still alive.
“It comes across as harsh, I think if I tried to say this to someone who has just lost someone, I think they will be like ‘oh, that’s a bit strong’, but bear in mind it’s been 20 years since I lost my brother, so I feel like I owe it to him to go out and just carry on be the best version of myself I can be. I have been through the grief stage and it comes to a point where it’s the cycle of life..we are all gonna die, we all get a number. Like I was saying when I wrote the other day, six guys from the Surrey team who played with him, died.”
Hollioake also speaks about his tryst with captaincy and what he learnt from it in the interview.
