"Struggling with anxiety, nightmares, flashbacks...": Flintoff opens up on his car accident

NEW DELHI: Former England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff said that he struggled with "anxiety, nightmares and flashbacks" and cried "every two minutes" after experiencing a life-threatening car crash while filming Top Gear.

In December 2022, Flintoff was hospitalised with some serious injuries he sustained while filming Top Gear, a show on BBC. He was left with some serious face and rib injuries. After the incident, BBC had said that the show was put to rest for the foreseeable future.

Flintoff made this revelation during a BBC documentary, called "Freddie Flintoff's Field Of Dreams On Tour", in which the 46-year-old takes a group of young people from his hometown of Preston on a cricketing tour to India. Flintoff rarely spoke on his car crash after it happened and made very little public appearances.

"I do not want to sit and feel sorry for myself, I do not want sympathy, but it is going from being here for seven months, to going to India," Flintoff said as quoted about the programme by Sky Sports.

"As much as I want to go out and do things, I have just not been able to. I am struggling with my anxiety, I have nightmares, I have flashbacks, it is been so hard to cope. But I am thinking if I do not do something, I will never go. I have got to get on with it."

After the accident, Flintoff made a slow return to public eye, joining the England team's backroom staff during the T20 series against West Indies earlier this year and taking up the job of Northern Superchargers in The Hundred tournament.

Flintoff said that he "genuinely should not be here" after what happened. "I genuinely should not be here after what happened. I need help, and I realise I am not the best at asking for it.

I need to stop crying every two minutes," said the all-rounder. "I have got to look at the positives, have not I? I am still here, I have got another chance, I have got to go at it. I am seeing that as how it is, a second go."

Flintoff said that he thought he could "just shake it off" after his accident, but said that things have been "a lot harder than I thought". "I am better than I was. I do not know what completely better is. I am what I am now, I am different to what I was, that is something I will have to deal with for the rest of my life," he concluded.

Flintoff is considered as one of the finest all-rounders of the modern era, scoring 7,315 runs at an average of 31.39 in 227 matches and 259 innings across all formats from 1998-2009.

He scored eight centuries and 44 half-centuries, with the best score of 167. He also took 400 wickets across the three formats at an average of 29.23, with the best figures of 5/19.

Flintoff was a key figure of England's historic 2005 Ashes series against Australia at home, which marked their first series win over the Aussies in over 18 years.