18 hours Ago By [email protected] (Thomas Reeves)
Adam Hollioake is happy if Kent fans keep hating him - as long as his team is winning! While the new head coach and Kent’s faithful are now on the same side, legendary former Surrey captain Hollioake acknowledges he still might not be a hugely popular figure with some Kent supporters. “I’ve got a bit of work to do to win over the Kent crowd,” said Hollioake, who played for Surrey from 1992 until 2004, as well as having a brief T20 stint at Essex in 2007. “There’s probably about 15 years of dislike for one another there.
“To be honest, I’m not too worried about that. It’s none of my business whether they like me or not - I don’t care. “I guess, if we’re winning things, I’m more likely to be on their good side than their bad side.
But if we win everything and they still hate me, I’m happy with that. “I’m always happy to be the bad guy.” Flintoff signs for Kent Stewart: We should be in red-ball contention Kent have food for thought Following a stint as head coach of Hong Kong’s national team at the 2000 ACC limited-overs Trophy, Hollioake returned to coaching in 2017 as head coach of the Boost Defenders in Afghanistan’s Shpageeza Cricket League.
The rest of his coaching experience hasn’t been in the top job, but he doesn’t see that as too much of an issue as he aims to earn the respect of his new charges ahead of their 2025 campaign. He said: “I don’t necessarily deserve respect. I’ve got to earn that every day.
“When I was captain, it was the same thing. I didn’t think I had a divine right to have respect. You have to earn that every day.
“As for coaching, I’ve never been in the position before to be a head coach. “My first priority over the last decade has been bringing my children up so I’ve taken on consultancy jobs and my kids have grown up. “My most important thing in life has been to be a dad and give them the best start in life and now I’ve got to the point where, thankfully, they’ve left - I’m still shouldering the financial burden of that, mind you - and now is my opportunity to bring on some of these guys.
“Hopefully, we can turn them into better players and better men. But along that journey, albeit I have always felt my destiny is to be a head coach, it’s given me the opportunity to be a consultant coach. “I was the fielding coach for England, then the bowling coach for England.
In more recent times, I’ve been batting coach for Pakistan and Queensland so I feel like I’ve been picking up different tools and I understand the details of the game. “Therefore hopefully - as a head coach - I’m able to have conversations with the people in those roles and understand what they’re going through. “I feel like that’s been an important part of my evolution as a coach.
” Hollioake is unsure if his Kent arrival will lead to a cultural shift, the county looking to move on from a forgettable 2024 campaign. “I’ve got no idea,” he stated. “I don’t know what they did last year.
I don’t really concern myself too much with the past. “Whatever has gone on there, that’s gone on. I think I’ve got a pretty clear idea of the way I want things done.
“It’s not hard, really. It’s just about turning up with a good attitude, turning up every day, wanting to play hard and work hard. “If that’s a shift, they, obviously, were doing something wrong in the past.
But from what I’ve seen, everyone here has turned up with the right attitude in the few weeks I’ve been here. “Everyone I’ve spoken to has expressed a desire to work hard so I don’t necessarily feel like it’ll be that hard to get that message across.” Kent will start their County Championship Division 2 season at Northamptonshire tomorrow.
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