Return to cricket 'saved me' after Top Gear car crash, says Flintoff

Andrew Flintoff has described his return to cricket as a coach over the last 18 months as "the one thing that saved me" as he struggled to come to terms with the mental and physical scars caused in a car accident during filming for the BBC's Top Gear in December 2022.

- Simon Burnton

Flintoff talks for the first time about the crash and its aftermath in a Disney+ documentary to be released tomorrow. "After the accident I didn't think I had it in me to get through," he says. "This sounds awful: part of me thinks I should have been killed. Part of me thinks I wish I had died.

"I didn't want to kill myself, I won't mistake the two things. I wasn't wishing, I was thinking: that would have been so much easier. Now I try to take the attitude, you know what, the sun will come up tomorrow, and my kids will still give me a hug. I feel in a better place now."

For several months after the accident Flintoff refused to leave his house except for medical appointments. He had had little involvement in cricket since his retirement in 2010 and move into TV presenting, but it was the sport that eventually coaxed him from seclusion, initially to run a few sessions for the England men's team in 2023 and then with formal appointments in 2024 as coach of the England Lions, a B-team largely composed of emerging players, and of the Hundred side Northern Superchargers.

"If one thing's come out of it which is positive it's being back in cricket," Flintoff said. "It's probably the one thing that saved me. I've been welcomed back into that fold. It's such a good place. I feel it's safe. I have moments when I'm sat in a dressing room and I'm watching a game of cricket surrounded by cricketers and friends, and I'm able to forget."