"Ben was a hugely-talented young cricketer, a popular member of the side, and he will be greatly missed by everyone in the England dressing room," Fletcher said.

"He was one of a number of young players that we were looking to take to the (2003) World Cup with the one-day squad next winter.

"And it's tragic that a young life has been lost in this way."

England chairman of selectors David Graveney recalled how proud the Hollioake family was when Ben and brother Adam made their Test debuts together, against Australia in 1997.

"This is a great loss of someone who was so young and so talented," he said.

"Everyone will remember the impact Ben made on his ODI debut at Lord's against Australia."

Hollioake is the second Surrey player to die in a car crash in recent years, following Graham Kersey's similar accident near Brisbane in December 1996.

"This tragedy will hit Surrey County Cricket Club particularly hard following the death of Graham Kersey and my thoughts go to everyone at Surrey and also to Ben's family," said Graveney.

Former England coach David Lloyd, who gave Hollioake his chance at international level, said: "You would be hard pressed to find a more popular lad anywhere in cricket.

Warwickshire and England batsman Nick Knight was a great friend of Hollioake's from their international time together.

Knight said: "It's hard to put it into words - it's unbelievable.

"It comes at a time when he was getting to grips with his cricket. He hadn't played as much as he would have liked but you felt he was on the verge of fulfilling the potential everyone knew he had.

"Overall he was a great mate. He was an extremely popular chap."

Knight had been with Hollioake on England's recent one-day tour and he added: "You can't comprehend that this sort of thing can happen. Two weeks ago we said goodbye and 'see you in the summer mate'.

"I thought a lot of him. He was a good man to have in the dressing room and a fine cricketer."

Popular

BBC Sport's Pat Murphy said that Hollioake was "a very popular man with a ready smile.

"By his own admission, we hadn't seen the best of Ben Hollioake.

"I remember interviewing him about three weeks ago in Napier and we talked about his hopes for the future.

"He admitted he was still unfulfilled - he had enormous talent and could frustrate people with his inconsistency but never as a guy. He was enormously popular."