Twenty-one former international cricket captains, including India’s Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengsarkar, have urged Pakistan to ensure that former prime minister Imran Khan receives the medical examination ordered by the country’s Supreme Court.
In a letter to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday, the former players called for a medical board, including Khan’s personal doctors and his sister Uzma Khan, to be allowed to carry out a full assessment. They said any treatment recommended by the panel should be provided without delay.
Khan, 73, has been held at Adiala jail in Rawalpindi since September 2023 after his arrest the previous month. He faces multiple criminal cases, including allegations linked to corruption.
Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Aug. 18 ordered authorities to take Khan to hospital within 48 hours. He was taken to a hospital in Islamabad on Friday but returned to prison after only a brief visit.
The former captains said Khan had spent only a few hours at the hospital and had been examined by a state-appointed medical team before being returned to jail. They said the court-ordered medical board had not been given enough time to complete its assessment.
The signatories also called for an independent examination in light of reports that Khan had suffered substantial loss of vision in his right eye.
They urged Pakistani authorities to allow Khan’s family to visit him every week without administrative delays.
“Whatever the legal and political arguments surrounding his case,” the former captains said, completing a court-ordered medical process should not be controversial.
Other signatories included former England captains Alastair Cook and Nasser Hussain and former Australia captains Greg Chappell and Steve Waugh.
The appeal follows a similar letter in February from former international captains calling for humane treatment and proper medical care for Khan.
Khan, a former Pakistan captain, entered politics after retiring from cricket and founded the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party in 1996. He served as prime minister from 2018 until 2022, when his government was removed after relations with Pakistan’s military leadership deteriorated.
In January 2025, Khan was sentenced to 14 years in prison in a corruption case, while his wife Bushra Bibi received a seven-year sentence.
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