Lancashire-born ex-cricketer and TV star, Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff, has taken a ragtag bunch of young cricketers on a sub-continental tour.
In early 2023, former international cricketer Freddie Flintoff had planned to take a bunch of youngsters from his native Preston on a once-in-a-lifetime cricket tour of India.
It was set to be an incredible trip, celebrating India’s most popular sport and delving into the culture and communities of a country that couldn’t feel further from Lancashire, and was to be the basis for the second series of his hit BBC show Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams.
But in December 2022, just 12 weeks before Flintoff, now 46, was due to fly halfway across the world with the boys, he was involved in a serious accident while filming Top Gear.
“Something happened which changed my life forever,” he says in the belated Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams: On Tour, which is due to air on BBC One this month.
Flintoff was severely injured in the accident at the Dunsfold Park Aerodrome in Surrey, putting all his hopes of taking his cricket lads to India on hold.
Yet, as keen as Flintoff was to take his team to India, it simply wasn’t possible.
In episode one of Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams: On Tour, we see the moment it’s confirmed to the lads that the headlines they’ve seen are true –Flintoff is very unwell.
In a self-filmed clip Flintoff, who is lying in bed on a white towel, his face stitched from the top of his nose to his chin with a dressing placed under his nostril, says he is seeing surviving the accident as “a second go”.
“(I) genuinely should not be here with what happened,” he says.
“It’s gonna be a long road back. I’ve only just started.”
The documentary then picks up with Flintoff seven months after the accident, as he is still recovering at home.
“I struggle with anxiety. I have nightmares, I have flashbacks,” he says.
“It’s been so hard to cope with.”
But then, six months later in January 2024, he’s back to see the boys, excited to tell them that they won’t be waiting much longer for their trip across the world – and they are so thrilled to see him.
When one of the lads asks if he’s feeling completely better, he says: “I don’t know if I will again, to be honest”.
“This is something I’ll probably have to deal with for the rest of my life,” he adds.
It’s a stark change of environment for the lads used to their Preston home comforts.
However, everyone gets stuck in, trying local curries, shopping (and haggling) in food markets, and playing gully cricket in the city’s streets, enjoying the sport in one of the most revered cricketing nations in the world.
“I lived with them for two and a half weeks, you know, we ate together every day, we did everything together. It was incredible,” says Flintoff, speaking at a launch event for the series.
“I think the overriding theme of the trip,” he adds, “was that we, everybody on the trip, realised (that) actually, in our lives, we get so many opportunities. And it’s all about taking them.
“I think the penny dropped with the lads as the tour goes on. Because some of the kids that we met, and some of the places we went to India, these kids only get one opportunity and they grab it with both hand.
“We thought: we’re not going to let any more pass us by.”
Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams: On Tour starts on Tuesday, August 13 at 9pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
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