Freddie Flintoff says "nothing has come close" to the adrenaline rush he got from playing cricket – not even his hair-raising stunts on ‘Top Gear’.
Other than getting up to 200mph in a 1990s Jaguar XJ220 for the BBC One show’s new segment, ‘The 200mph club’, the 42-year-old retired cricketing champ admitted it’s the thrill of the bat sport that has provided him with the biggest kicks.
He said: "This will sound quite strange but all the things I have done since retirement, some daft stuff, stunts and various things, but from an adrenaline point of view nothing has ever come close to going out to bat for England or Lancashire for me.
"I think for a while I was trying to find that again and recreate it and I couldn’t find it in boxing or in doing a load of extreme sports.
"I must admit that [getting to 200mph] was up there.
"Just because it is like nothing I have driven before.
"It is an old car, it is all over the place you can hear it rattling, you feel every bump, and then you have got to stop it.
"After I had finished it the adrenaline was definitely going and it was something I really enjoy and always search for.
"I had a weird sense of achievement having driven that car that fast."
Meanwhile, the new series – which kicks off on October 4 – sees Flintoff and his co-stars Chris Harris, 45, and Paddy McGuinness, 47, head to the latter’s hometown of Bolton.
And the former ‘Take Me Out’ host admitted he got emotional when he watched it back because it was so "special" filming where he grew up.
He added to The Mirror Online: "When you film in your hometown it’s always special.
"I remember watching it for the first time and filling up.
"I was like, God look at this I’m like on a show that’s massive around the world, we’re on BBC One and these are the streets I grew up in and played in.
"It’s just so lovely, for me it was kind of like one of those cliches ‘I wish my mum could see me now’, but I did definitely get that feeling from it."