Fond farewell to a cricketer who embodied spirit of the game

Mid-July, the high noon of the cricket season, used to be Ben Hollioake's moment. A year ago last week, he made a match-winning 73 in the Benson & Hedges Cup final. Five years ago last week, he made a match-winning 98 in the Benson & Hedges Cup final. Last Saturday, with Lord's resplendent for another final, he should have been centre-stage again, or at least loping on as England's substitute fielder as he did in New Zealand only five months ago. Instead, on Monday morning at Southwark Cathedral, his family, friends, fellow cricketers and fans gathered to say their goodbyes.

No England player has died younger than Hollioake, who was 24 when he was killed in a car crash in Perth in March. His memorial service could hardly have been anything other than moving, but what made it more so was the range of the tributes.

Alec Stewart, who played straight man to Hollioake in both his star turns of 1997, read the piece that begins "Death is nothing at all", with a stentorian steadiness that almost made you believe it. Alongside psalms and Brahms from the choir, there was rock, from Mark Butcher, who wrote a folk song for the occasion called You're Never Gone and sang it with nerveless aplomb.

There were three addresses, one from within the family, one from the Oval pavilion and one from the church. Adam Hollioake rose to the occasion with a speech of fearless candour which gave the lie to the idea that a sporting dressing-room is a place of emotional repression. He even said he regretted playing cricket because it had "got in the way of the most amazing brotherhood". The way he spoke, and wept, illustrated the strength of the bond, but you hoped that one day, when the heat of grief has abated, he will be glad they shared so much.

Adam was followed by John Major, ex-President of Surrey, who expressed some amiable generalities about a young life cut short. Then came the Rev Andrew Wingfield Digby, once the England team chaplain, who set himself the task of explaining why terrible accidents are all part of God's plan. Something about his delivery, robust and down-to-earth, indicated that even he wasn't convinced.

Afterwards, Ben's family politely lined up to shake hands. Bennaya, Adam's new-born baby, slept in her mother's arms, silently signalling that life goes on. Outside, the mourners milled about in the sunshine, and you could imagine Ben there with his mates, putting on his shades and posing. Instead there was just a picture on a table, with some flowers and a condolence book in which one contributor after another harked back to his international debut, aged 19, at Lord's in May 1997.

That day, when he danced to 63 off 48 balls and drove Glenn McGrath to distraction, was a moment so defining that it almost became a drag. It wasn't just dramatic in itself: it dramatised everything that followed, right up to the dreadful ending. It was news if Ben did well, and it was news if he didn't. His last appearance on the sports pages before his death came on preview day before England's final one-dayer in New Zealand, when he was picked by the management to talk to the press – but not to play in the team.

Cricket people are not always comfortable with high emotion, and some have felt that the reaction to Hollioake's death was overdone. His was not, after all, a great career: only 22 international caps, only one Championship hundred (in his final game at The Oval, against Yorkshire, last September), only one first-class five-for.

It's true that he never found the consistency that cricket demands, except with England Under-19. And it's true that he had his own form to blame, as well as the vagaries of selection, for the fact that he played only two Tests out of a possible 53. But there was more to him than an indifferent set of stats.

Unlike some flair players, he was a team man: a scintillating fielder, a batsman who thrived in a crisis, and a vital cog in a team that went from underachievers to winning five trophies in the six seasons he played for them. Without him, in this year's B&H, they fell apart, losing four group games out of five. He could be brattish with the public but he was much liked by his team-mates.

The best batsmen, the Tendulkars and Laras, compose innings that are symphonies. An innings from Ben was more like a song from the Beach Boys – short, sunny, bursting with a precarious beauty.

The stakes were raised when he batted. He could be immaculately classical one moment, haplessly inept the next. His style, all elegance and risk, all poetry and no prose, was an encapsulation of what makes the game worth watching. He embodied the unbearable lightness of being a sportsman. That is why people are sad, and they are right to be.

Tim de Lisle is editor of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2003