Sussex's team spirit and sense of togetherness which has helped the squad achieve so much in the last few years will never be tested as much as it will over the next few days and weeks.

Two days after the tragic events of Easter Monday, the players who will arrive home over the next couple of days are still trying desperately hard simply to come to terms with the fact that Umer Rashid was not sitting among them, laughing and joking, on the flight home.

His death, along with his younger brother Burhan, in a drowning accident on the club's pre-season tour of Grenada, is the second blow to hit cricket in the space of less than two weeks after Surrey all-rounder Ben Hollioake was killed in a car crash in Australia.

Both had achieved much in the game and were capable of even greater things. Their deaths will hit the game hard.

Sussex cricket has lost a player who was an integral part of the success the county had achieved in the last three seasons following years of underachievement.

His team-mates are mourning a much loved colleague and friend and one of the most naturally gifted cricketers they are ever likely to play with.

You will struggle to find a picture anywhere of Umer which does not show him breaking out into a big grin. He liked to play with a smile on his face, even when things were not always going his way.

Skipper Chris Adams joined the county in 1998, a year before Rashid came to Hove from Middlesex where he had been on the staff for four years without truly realising the potential he had shown in university cricket where Will House and Robin Martin-Jenkins, who played with him for Sussex, were among his team-mates.

The county had never really replaced Ian Salisbury and Adams and coach Peter Moores felt the tall, wristy left-armer could bring variety to the spin bowling attack as well as scoring useful runs in the middle order.

In his first season with Sussex he helped them lift their first silverware for 13 years when they won the National League. Umer had given notice of his match-winning potential earlier in the season when he took 5-24, his best bowling in one-day cricket, to secure an important victory over Glamorgan.

His blossoming as a cricketer continued the following year, even though the team struggled badly and finished bottom of the County Championship.

The game against Glamorgan at Colwyn Bay will be remembered by the statisticians for the batting exploits of the Welsh county's Steve James who hit a triple century.

But as Sussex tumbled to an innings defeat, Rashid stood defiant, making his maiden first-class century in typically flamboyant style.

A couple of weeks earlier he had returned his best Championship bowling figures, taking 5-103 against Northamptonshire.

Last season off-spinner Mark Davis joined Sussex and the two slow bowlers often operated in tandem as the county climbed up the second division table. In purely statistical terms it was probably his poorest year, but Adams and Moores never lost faith in his ability to change the course of a match almost single-handedly.

In a crucial game against Durham last July he delivered once again with both bat and ball. He made his second first-class hundred in the first innings and then, just when it looked as if Durham were going to escape with a draw, he came on to take 4-9 and victory. Like all slow bowlers, he occasionally got some stick from opposition batsmen. But he seldom resorted to defensive tactics even on unresponsive pitches. And, of course, a smile was never far away.

In total he played 112 games for the county, scoring 1985 runs and taking 122 wickets. He was popular among the Hove crowd who have always loved a trier. He would dive around energetically in the field, often making the most difficult stops and catches look ridiculously easy.

Then, when he came out to bat, there was that characteristic twirl of the bat in his hands a contortionist would have been proud of as he walked to the crease. You knew what was to follow might not last too long, but you also knew it would be entertaining.

He was determined to play his part to help Sussex establish themselves in Division One this season. Only last week he told me he felt he was bowling better than at any time in his career, having hard worked on his action during the winter.

He played his last game for Sussex on Sunday and, typically, was in the thick of the action, taking a catch and then a vital wicket as the county beat Northamptonshire.

Later that day he joined the rest of the squad at a beachside restaurant. As usual he was chatting away non-stop, telling anyone who would listen - and usually everyone did - about the new flat in Hangleton he had just moved into and his plans for the rest day on Monday.

In time Sussex may find a middle order strokeplayer, spin bowler and energetic fielder capable of emulating Umer Rashid.

But the vitality and sense of fun he brought to the team and his team-mates is irreplaceable.