Cricketer Ben 'shouldn't have died'

The grieving girlfriend of cricket star Ben Hollioake revealed today how she cried "it should have been me" after discovering he had died in a car crash.

Janaya Scholten, who spent three weeks in a coma following the smash that claimed Hollioake's life, said she was "torn to pieces" when told he was dead.

The England and Surrey player died instantly when his Porsche 924 spun off a bend and into a brick wall on a stretch of road in Perth, Australia, in March. Doctors feared 23-yearold Janaya, who was in the passenger seat, might die from her severe head injuries.

In her first interview since the crash, she revealed how she woke from her coma with no memory of the accident - and no idea what had happened to her boyfriend. It was another month before she was strong enough to be told.

Until then, she drifted in and out of consciousness, unable to speak and paralysed down her left side, as her family endured the agony of questions about Ben - scribbled on notes until she learned to talk again.

Janaya described the heartbreaking scene when she first opened her eyes and thought Ben was at her bedside in hospital - in fact it was his brother Adam - and wrote a note, using her pet name for Ben, asking: "Hi, Weaz. When can I go home?"

She said today: "I think I knew Ben was in trouble. I kept asking everyone about him but I never directly asked if he was dead. I would ask Adam, 'How's the cricket? We both knew I was really asking how was Ben. He would talk about his own cricket to avoid the subject. I was too weak to press the issue."

After four weeks, her parents Lynne, 44, a nurse, and Jack, 46, an insurance agent, told her the truth. Janaya said: "My first real memory is when they told me. We were sitting outside and I asked again, 'How's Ben?' They looked at each other and Mum said, 'Ben didn't make it.' I absolutely refused to believed her."

Now, brain-damaged and walking with a stick as she recovers from the paralysis, Janaya is trying to adjust to life without Ben.

She said: "I hit rock bottom in hospital. I wished it was me who had died instead of Ben. I was just torn to pieces with grief. My world had ended. I wouldn't have got through it without my family, Ben's friends. Time's supposed to be a great healer. But it's not working yet."