For a couple of days we were reminded of Lord's last year when, in a limited-overs match, Big Ben creamed the Australians all round the park. What we also well remembered, however, was rather different. That in the aftermath of another debacle against Australia at Headingley, Hollioake had played in a Test match too, the fifth at Trent Bridge, and was compromised by company which was out of his stratosphere.
If Hollioake was a mistaken selection last year, he was a flight of fancy this time, having barely troubled the scorers in county cricket through May and June.
Unsurprisingly, Hollioake did not make the final XI and instead was seen struggling away in county cricket during the following weeks, a precocious artist unable to find his way around an artisan's maze.
Meanwhile, a great, galumphing lad from Preston, whose earliest claim to attention was to throw a cricket ball from one side of Old Trafford to the other, became the selectors' choice to replace the rudderless Hollioake in the people's hearts. A three-wicket spell against Worcestershire had been enough to convince David Lloyd and the groping three Gs that Andrew Flintoff's medium-ish bowling could accompany his forthright batting for Trent Bridge. More fantasy surely, more unnecessary preening of still immature feathers. Except that 'Freddie' Flintoff played and England won, so he played at Headingley too and will be for ever in history as part of England's most successful Test team for more than a decade.
Then, last weekend, the selectors returned Flintoff to his roots and recalled Hollioake, the younger that is, to his home at the Oval for a second crack at Test cricket.
It is not, you might reasonably think, much of a thing to choose cricketers willy-nilly for Test caps if they are not proven as one of the best available XI. But it is easier to incorporate a gamble, or shall we call it an investment, to a team that is winning than to one under the cosh.
Thus, Hollioake's possible place in the team today is acceptable, as would Flintoff's have been. Flintoff though made an unlucky 'pair' - if there is such a thing - at Leeds and bowled less well than he had at Nottingham. He has not made many runs to augment the two championship hundreds before he was first picked and he is probably back wondering about life and its odd, unexpected intrusions. But he is a man of character, is well-liked for his uncomplicated, honest manner and is likely to push aside both the adulation and the disenchantment which have jarred him in so short a time and to make something of an 'A' tour with England after Christmas.
He should be chosen for he is a mighty straight hitter, a stronger bowler than he appears and a superb catcher. Mike Brearley thought his Test debut had a hint of Botham, which is an over-used parallel but which from Mr Brearley is worth an ear.
If Flintoff has a smidgen of Botham then Hollioake has a whiff of one David Gower. Why, he was fined £1,000 yesterday for being absent from practice, though not apparently in a Tiger Moth, and he wafts away outside off stump as if he were sometimes asleep. Gower announced himself to the world with a dreamy hook stroke to the boundary off Liaqat Ali way back in 1978; 20 years on, Hollioake chose to sweep Shane Warne into the Tavern and drive Glenn McGrath over his head to the pavilion.
Of the things Gower achieved which as yet elude Hollioake, the most important is a weight of runs. Hollioake has yet to make a hundred in county cricket, which is extraordinary given the strokeplay we have seen in one-day matches.
It is easy to blame his apparent laissez-faire for this - the shades, the clothes and the gloss - but on England's 'A' tour to Sri Lanka last winter he impressed with his attention to detail and his willingness for graft to go with glamour. He was the star of the tour - ahead of Flintoff who did pretty well - making two big hundreds in the 'Test' matches and using the new ball with swerve and venom. Nick Knight, the captain, thought him: ``A very good guy, not a poseur at all . . . a great asset to any side.''
Recently he has put on a yard of pace, taken wickets consistently in county cricket, and in the match against South Africa for an ECB XI, made 70 smooth runs. Clearly the selectors have been seduced by these modest but improving performances and have pencilled him in for Australia ahead of Flintoff.
They were born but a month apart, just a little more than 20 years ago and almost exactly in between the time of the stage entrances made by Gower and Botham. Naturally, they will want to stand on their own feet as tyros of a new age rather than reflections of a nation's past and, most especially, of its present hope.
The requirement now is for them to reward the selectors' faith by adding substance in their cricket to undoubted raw ability. Then perhaps for some time to come, they can be chosen for good reason rather than for vague romance.