The Essex rumour mill

They're a bunch of professional procrastinators those Essex fans. When not idling the hours away on Facebook or planning their evenings out at Duke's nightclub in Chelmsford, they can be found swapping gossip on the Essex bulletin board, including this gem last night: "After speaking to people close to the club I can reveal that negotiations are under way for Adam Hollioake to captain Essex in all forms of cricket next season," a conspirator wrote. "It is understood that his business interests are to just be sorted out."

Hollioake, who retired from cricket in 2004, is over here to play Twenty20 for Essex and when I spoke to him a few weeks ago, the former England and Surrey captain said that he was returning back to Australia, where his family and business interests are based, after the competition. Essex have been without a full-time captain since Ronnie Irani announced that injury was forcing him out of the game.

Thinking that I might be on to the scoop of the century, or at least the past half-hour, I telephoned Hollioake just now and he issued a flat denial: "I'm enjoying Twenty20 but I have no plans to return to cricket full-time," he said. "If I'd wanted to do that I wouldn't have left Surrey. Anyway, my family are settled in Australia and my daughter is at school over there so I wouldn't want to uproot them."

So it's just wishful thinking on the part of some Essex fans, then? "If they'd seen me play recently it would be unwishful thinking," Hollioake said. Like another Essex man's quest for an apprentice, the county's search for a captain goes on...