Andrew Flintoff has said he “didn’t know if I had it in me to carry on” after his crash at the Top Gear test track.
the 47-year-old was speaking on Freddie Flintoff’s Field Of Dreams: Ultimate Test, the third series to be made in which the former England cricket captain attempts to build new teams from teenagers who have limited experience of the game.
In the first episode of the new BBC One series which launches on Sunday 7 September, Flintoff attempts to build his first team of girls in Blackpool, and one of the teenagers he invites to join them asks him: “How hard was it to leave your house again?” after the crash.
Flintoff replied: “It was, what – 18 months ago? And you know, I’ve suffered with things like depression in the past before, but this time was different. I didn’t know if I had it in me to carry on, not that I wanted to die or anything like that, I just didn’t know if I had it in me, and that took a while.
“The one thing,I think,getting quite deep here,but the one thing you just want to be is happy in yourself,and try and be accepting of yourself of what you are. It took me a long time to be like that, and then the crash put me back again, and now it’s like finding myself or finding the person I want to be.”
Flintoff was taken to hospital with facial and rib injuries following the crash at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey, in December 2022.
At an earlier point in the episode, Flintoff tells another girl that he has “gone back to cricket” after the incident as it is indeed “a bit safer”.
It comes after the show’s second series saw Flintoff speak about the incident for the first time on television, revealing he was “crying every two minutes”, and only left his home for medical appointments in t
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