Twenty-one former international cricket captains – spanning Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev to Allan Border, David Gower and Clive Lloyd – have put their names to a letter pleading with Islamabad to give Imran Khan “humane treatment and proper medical care”, a rare and pointed show of solidarity from a fraternity that has watched, with mounting alarm, as the health of one of the game’s own has become entangled in Pakistan’s roiling politics. The letter, dated August 23 and addressed to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, was confirmed to Al Jazeera by four of its signatories.
The 73-year-old Khan, who captained Pakistan to its only Cricket World Cup title in 1992 and is widely regarded as the finest all-rounder the country has produced, has been imprisoned for three years on a raft of charges that he insists are politically motivated. The cricketers’ intervention follows a Supreme Court order that Khan be moved from Pakistan’s Adiala Jail to the privately-run Shifa International Hospital for an independent medical assessment – an order the authorities appear to have sidestepped by sending him instead to a state-run facility, prompting his party to file a contempt petition.
What the letter asks for
The signatories – who include Hall of Famers Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Lloyd, Border, Greg Chappell, Ian Chappell, John Wright and Gower, alongside former England captains Nasser Hussain, Michael Atherton and Andrew Strauss – say they are writing not as politicians but as former team-mates and rivals bound by the game itself. Their letter follows an earlier, similar appeal in February signed by 14 former captains.
They have asked Sharif’s government to ensure three things: that the Supreme Court-directed medical board, which includes Khan’s own physicians and his sister, Dr Uzma Khan, be allowed to complete a full and independent assessment – particularly of his reported loss of vision in his right eye; that weekly family visits, restored by the court, continue without administrative delay; and that whatever treatment the board recommends be provided promptly. “The basic decency of ensuring a court-ordered medical process is actually completed is not, in our view, a controversial request,” the letter states. “It is one we believe every nation that plays this game would recognise as fair.”
Notably, no former Pakistani cricketers appear among the signatories of either letter, even though several have voiced concern about Khan’s health in the past. Greg Chappell, who struck up a friendship with Khan after both retired from the game, has driven both efforts. He has said the campaign is meant to press a human rights issue rather than take a political side, and has spoken of the “aura, personal power and charm” that he believes made Khan a threatening figure to his opponents once he entered politics.
How Pakistan’s most popular politician ended up behind bars
Khan’s imprisonment is the culmination of a fall from power that began in April 2022, when he was removed as prime minister in a parliamentary no-confidence vote – a vote he claimed was engineered with American backing. He spent the following year touring the country addressing rallies that drew enormous crowds, framing his ouster as a conspiracy and demanding early elections, and survived being shot in the leg at one such protest in November 2022.
He was first arrested in May 2023 while attending a court hearing, triggering nationwide unrest, including attacks by his supporters on military installations on May 9 2023. It is believed that the powerful Pakistan’s army has never forgiven him for the violence. He was arrested again on August 5, 2023 after being convicted in the so-called Toshakhana case, over his handling of state gifts, and has remained in detention ever since. Since then he has been convicted, in separate proceedings, of leaking state secrets and, alongside his wife Bushra Bibi, of corruption over the illegal retention and sale of state gifts, a case in which the couple were sentenced to 17 years. Khan denies all the charges and has been acquitted in some of the more than 180 cases filed against him; his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), was barred from contesting the 2024 general election under his own name and symbol, though PTI-backed independents still won the largest bloc of seats.
Despite his removal from office, Khan is widely considered Pakistan’s most popular political figure, a status his supporters say makes his continued imprisonment all the more transparently political. Rights groups such as Amnesty International have concluded that his detention is unlawful and politically motivated, and called for the restoration of his rights as he marked three years behind bars this month.
The government’s position
Sharif’s government, which Khan regards as his principal political rival, has consistently rejected claims that the prosecutions are politically driven. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar has said Khan and his wife were convicted “after the court examined solid evidence” and that “the court delivered a fair decision” in the gifts case. Officials have likewise defended his conditions of detention, insisting due process is being followed even as his family and party dispute the adequacy of his recent hospital examination – which they say fell well short of the full, independent assessment the Supreme Court had ordered. Al Jazeera said that the Pakistani government did not respond to its request for comment on the cricketers’ latest letter.
