Members of the Sussex County Cricket club returned home today mourning the loss of team-mate Umer Rashid.

The players returned early having curtailed their pre-season tour of Grenada after Umer drowned in a doomed bid to rescue his younger brother Burhan on the paradise island.

Exhausted after the ten hour flight, 12 members of the Sussex team, wearing pale blue tracksuits, flew into Gatwick airport.

An emotional captain, Chris Adams, paid tribute to Umer, 26.

He said: "He was a lovely, bubbly and very positive person. He will be irreplaceable.

"If what the Grenadan police say is right, then he was just the type of person to try and save his brother. It speaks volumes about Umer."

He said the players had had very little sleep since learning about the double tragedy. Everyone handles it differently but we are all in a state of shock and disbelief.

"But whatever we are feeling can be nothing to the grief his family must be going through. Our feelings, compared to theirs, are insignificant. It is them we are thinking of."

The Sussex skipper said Umer would be remembered for his vibrancy and personality.

Struggling to contain his emotions he added: "He was everyone's friend, enormously talented and he will be missed by everyone."

The team was met by representatives of the club and relatives.

Other members of the team and coach Peter Moores have remained in Grenada.

Adams said he did not know what arrangements had been made for a funeral or when the bodies would be flown home.

He said: "That's a matter for the family."

Burhan's girlfriend, Caprice Ashton, 18, returned on the same flight as the players. Looking dazed and bewildered, wearing jeans and a white top with her hair in a pony tail, she was whisked through the arrival hall ahead of the team.

She had given police an eye-witness account of how Umer died a hero attempting to save his 18-year-old brother.

The Sussex all-rounder was on tour with his team and had travelled with Burhan and Miss Ashton to picturesque Concord Falls, ten miles from the island's capital of St Georges, during a day off on Easter Monday.

In a statement to local police, Miss Ashton, a student from Norwood Green in Middlesex, said they had walked down concrete steps to the pool at the bottom of the falls.

Umer went into the pool first and was joined shortly afterwards by Miss Ashton, who sat on rocks in a shallow area where the pool runs off to a stream.

She then joined Umer in the deeper water before Burhan, whom Miss Ashton referred to in her statement as Mohammed, also began to swim.

She said: "We started to swim for a while. Then I noticed Mohammed beginning to splash water all over with his hands and feet. He had panicked.

"I tried to pull him out but was unable to do so because he was too heavy. He was screaming for help. Umer was at the side of the water but could not see what was happening.

"After I realised I could not help him I started to scream and swam out of the water to try to get help. Umer then jumped into the water and was trying to help Mohammed get out.

"I managed to reach the first landing on the way up and looked down but I could not see Umer or Mohammed in the water."

Miss Ashton raised the alarm and a local man tried in vain to rescue the brothers using a rope before locals with diving equipment retrieved the bodies from the bottom of the 20ft-deep pool. Police said there were no other witnesses to the tragedy.

An autopsy yesterday confirmed both men died from drowning.