A comfortable 48-run victory for Lancashire sealed second place in Division One of the totesport League for the Lightning and with it £27,000 of prizemoney. But not unlike the Surrey Lions’ season, Adam Hollioake’s departure from the first-class stage failed to live up to expectations.

With bat and ball there were hints of the Hollioake of old, but just like the side he used to lead with supreme confidence – some would say a strut – he was a shadow of his former self. Charity work and business interests down under beckon for the 32-year-old. Life down under in the basement division now awaits the 2003 national league champions.

In three out of the last four seasons Hollioake has been Surrey’s leading wicket-taker in limited-overs cricket, but there is another side to his game, which he underlined by completing this year’s campaign as their leading one-day run-scorer. However, the undoubted fillip was Hollioake’s prodigious record in the Twenty20 Cup, which has been a significant factor behind the Oval outfit’s success in that competition. In short, his will be big boots to fill, but, last night, 21-year-old James Benning tried at least one of them on for size.

The Lions packed their line-up with batsmen in the event of having to chase under lights, but to the surprise of many embarked on their quest with a pair of young guns heading the order. A fresh-faced duo justified the faith shown in them, but after Benning was bowled trying to work Glen Chapple through mid-wicket batsmen came and went at regular intervals to keep the visitors firmly in second place.

Scott Newman and James Benning brought up the fifty partnership for Surrey’s first wicket in the tenth over, but then Benning – who hit three fours off Sajid Mahmood’s second over – was caught flat-footed. Mark Butcher’s first innings since the Twenty20 Cup group phase proved to be a brief affair and Mark Ramprakash was caught down the leg-side off Mahmood.

In the very next over, Newman chopped his first ball from Keedy on to his stumps and after some vintage Hollioake on-drives came the end of a career of which most cricketers would be justifiably proud; the former Surrey skipper advancing ambitiously down the track to the canny slow left-armer.

Alistair Brown and Azhar Mahmood added 49 in nine overs for the visitors’ sixth wicket, but the Lions’ hopes were effectively extinguished in the 36th over when Brown got one too high on his bat and skied a catch to cover point.

Earlier, three individual knocks characterised the beginning, middle and end of Lancashire’s imposing 244 for nine – Mark Chilton’s half-century, a 72-ball 73 from Stuart Law and Chris Schofield’s one-day career best 69 not out in 70 deliveries, which included the only six of the innings, off its very last ball.

The departure in quick succession of Chilton, who was run out by Ramprakash’s underarm throw from backward point, and Carl Hooper, who tried to hoist a straightening delivery from Nayan Doshi over the mid-wicket boundary, appeared to open the door to the visitors. But a partnership of 84 in less than an hour from Law and Schofield ensured the Lions would have their work cut out when darkness fell.

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