Minutes after the start of play on Saturday an unconfirmed report filtered through to the press box that Ben Hollioake had been killed in a car crash in Perth. On the field Mark Butcher and Nasser Hussain, blissfully unaware, were making a tidy start, but the cricket had lost its relevance. About 20 minutes later, the news became official. A young man, promising, popular and not yet even in the prime of his life, was dead, and there was a surreal air as his team-mates (and friends) went about their everyday business of hitting a red leather ball in strange white clothes.

It was one of those moments – tragic and clichéd at the same time – when a sport really is put in its true perspective. Butcher could have hit Chris Drum for six sixes in an over and you would have shrugged your shoulders. What did stats, facts and records matter now?

Most of the crowd were unaware of the news until an announcement was made during the lunch break. The flags were lowered to half-mast, and England's batsmen emerged after the interval with black armbands – or at least black tape. But Hussain and Mark Ramprakash, who had learned of the news at lunch, weren't greeted with the usual raucous cheers from the Barmy Army: the ground was subdued now. The cricket would go on, but for a while it wouldn't be accompanied by the usual mixture of raucous cheers and ribald chants.

Play will begin on Sunday with a minute's silence from both teams. If there's any comfort at all in this for the players, it is that they will be playing the game Ben loved. But they have all lost a dear friend, and to see the tears in Hussain's eyes as he spoke to the press at the close of play, was to recognise that this scar will take a long time to heal.

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com.

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