It was the fourth ball that did it. The one before is already celebrated: Ben Hollioake, aged 19, eased Glenn McGrath, Australia's spearhead, past mid-off for four. It was a first fine careless rapture to rank with David Gower's famous pull shot. But the next ball was just as telling. McGrath, insulted, replied with a bouncer. He knew it would be a no-ball, but he had a point to make. It was a good bouncer, jagging in and rearing up. Hollioake didn't try to hit it, or let it hit him, as England's previous teenager would have done. He swayed out of the line, late but not too late; he kept his head.

Even tailenders play the odd off-drive. On-drives are another matter. In McGrath's next over, Hollioake played one from middle and off: the shot of a true No.3, rather than the pinch-hitter the Lord's crowd had taken him to be. It was followed by a cover drive for four, a lofted off-drive for four more, and when McGrath adjusted his length, a flick off the hip for a single. Thirteen off the over.

Next, Hollioake played and missed repeatedly at Michael Kasprowicz's generous outswingers, and edged a four through the vacant first slip. But he also managed a handsome uppish cover drive, bisecting the ring, for four more. It was now inevitable that at least one media outlet would use the phrase `new Botham'. Well, it had been a full three days since the last time (ITV Teletext phone poll, May 22: `Is Adam the new Beefy?').

 McGrath retreated to the deep and Shane Warne came on. Hollioake treated him with due respect for one over, taking the chance to show off his orthodox forward-defensive, but then got a half-volley. Another debutant might have blocked it, or miscued, or pushed a single: this one drove it along the ground into the pavilion rails. Next ball, he played a premeditated lap for three.

 Steve Waugh made another bowling change, Jason Gillespie for Kasprowicz. His first ball was a gift, on Hollioake's legs, and he picked it up over square leg: his tenth four, and his first England fifty, off 37 balls. Half of Lord's rose to him, acclaiming not just his youth and his runs but his style – nerveless, nonchalant, utterly natural.

Next ball he was nearly out, playing tip and run, but the throw was wide; the Aussies were getting rattled. In the same over, Hollioake attempted a leg-glance and edged to third man for a single.

 It couldn't last. It shouldn't last. I made a note at this point: `hope he doesn't get a hundred.' The milestone would soon have become a millstone.

Facing Warne again, he played two more elegant defensive shots, then whipped a ball head-high through midwicket and into the deep, where McGrath was nursing his wounded pride. The man saving one got a hand to the ball, but that didn't stop it beating McGrath's dive. The Tavern cheered and scoffed; McGrath made a sign to them which used to be preserve of the umpires.

 Hollioake played a classy late cut, for no runs, and was then not given lbw – back foot, straight ball. He celebrated with a cultured cow shot for six, which deposited the ball, symbolically, between the Wisden sign and Father Time.

Next over, he dabbed Gillespie tamely to backward point and gave Steve Waugh a routine catch. He had made 63 off 48 balls, while Alec Stewart, who is never knowingly outscored, managed 18. Lord's stood up again. Hollioake raised his bat a little sheepishly and departed with something between a lope and a trudge. He kept his helmet on, which was a shame in a way, but made him archetypal as well as anonymous, a young warrior out of Homer or Virgil. In the Long Room, men old enough to be his grandfather rose from their stools, and shivers went down curving spines. The only people within 20 years of Hollioake were two playing members, both aged 25, who looked as excited as it is possible to look while wearing a navy-blue blazer and tie. There are people who joined the MCC waiting list before Hollioake was born, who were still on it as he made his princely entrance.

His eyes stayed fixed on the shiny cork floor, as if he thought he might slip. He didn't smile, and later he revealed, with a flicker of arrogance, that he had felt annoyed: `I'd begun to think the three figures were on.'

He had done enough; as Steve Waugh said, `I guess he turned the game. He put England ahead of the required rate and left them needing five an over. With eight wickets left, five of them specialist batsmen, all they had to do was not panic.

In the context of the series, Ben wasn't very significant. Most of England's batsmen made more runs, and none of the bowlers took fewer wickets. But he was the one who set the pulse racing. His 61 minutes were better than significant: they were magical.

 To be a second son is to get a leg up in life. If England hadn't already won the series, they might not have risked Ben at Lord's, still less informed him, at 10am, that he would bat at No. 3. That victory had been a team effort, born of exactly the collective intensity with which Australia had smothered England in the previous four Ashes series. But some players, as always, had done more than others. Graham Thorpe and Mike Atherton showed the way with their usual grit and skill. Darren Gough and Robert Croft, good friends and fellow relishers of a contest, confirmed the strides they had made in the winter. All of these were already automatic choices for the Test team. And then there was Adam Hollioake.

He started with a stutter, just as Surrey had when he took over as captain at the start of the season. He came out to bat in the

 Headingley murk at England's lowest point of the series – 40 for 4, the first 15 overs thrown away. In the press-box they were sharpening their laptops, waiting to write the old, old story.

Adam, contrary to all his pre-publicity, started the way so many Anglo-Aussies have against the other country – nervously. He played and missed at the three quick bowlers' outswingers; he played and missed by more at Shane Warne. And Warne wasn't at his best. Having been kept under wraps in 1993, one of the world's most experienced bowlers was playing his first one-day international in England.

After 25 balls, Hollioake had scratched seven runs. Thorpe was playing so much better, you wished he would farm the strike. Then Mark Taylor turned to Mark Waugh's gentle offbreaks – the sort of bowling change that has often brought him wickets. Waugh served up a juicy full-toss. A true Englishman would probably have chipped it straight to short extra. Hollioake thumped it to the cover boundary. Waugh's two overs cost 16, leaving England ahead of the rate and the spell broken.

 Hollioake rode his luck and regained his natural buoyancy. He pulled Warne behind square for six, an act of huge symbolic value. By now he was rattling along at a run a ball, well ahead of the rate. When two were needed to win, most English cricketers would have settled for piercing the in-field; Hollioake confirmed his fondness for the grand gesture by pulling Jason Gillespie for another six. England cleared the boundary only three times in the series: each time, it was a Hollioake who did it.

In the preceding few years, there was only one thing that England had been worse at than playing Australia: public relations. Mike Atherton is good with reporters one-to-one, but he goes to press conferences the way other men go to the dentist. David Lloyd was a breath of fresh air, with his radio experience and Lancastrian colour, but it all went sour in Bulawayo. England need someone who can respond to inquisitors – buffoons included – with the calm openness that is the norm in tennis or golf. Joining Atherton in the press room, Hollioake was quick and quotable, and he did the one thing guaranteed to elicit a good press: he made the hacks laugh. If he becomes England captain, he will be the best at PR since Brearley.

  At the Oval, his role was far less central. He got the wicket of the dangerous Adam Gilchrist, one of only two to fall to England bowlers. But when he returned to the stage, Atherton was already running the show. It was interesting to see them bat together for the first time – the past and present Future England Captains; two fine cricketers with little else in common, bar an iron will to win.

Again, Hollioake was at the right end at the right time. Again, he hit the winning runs, and passed fifty; in his four one-day internationals, he now had two four-wicket hauls and two fifties. What would he have done if he wasn't a nervous starter?

At Lord's, Adam's role shrivelled again, largely thanks to his brother. All he had time to do with the bat was try and finish it with another six off Warne. This time, his eye wasn't in, and he had to settle for a single.

Ben had come on to bowl first – adequately, but too late in the innings for any conclusions to be drawn. His bowling made less impression than his fielding; the length he bowled was exactly the length he feasted on later. Picked as a bowler who can bat, he played like a batsman who would have little trouble negotiating his own bowling.

When Atherton took him off, Adam came on, and, typically, pinched a wicket, conspiring with Stewart to have McGrath stumped. The new scoreboard, looming over the half-built Grand Stand, called the brothers H'OAKE A and H'OAKE B. (How will it cope when the Sri Lankans are here, next August?)

When Ben got back to the dressing-room, Adam, naturally, had something to say. `Well done, but you're still too skinny.'

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother. The Hollies, wasn't it?

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