Pakistan, explained.
A spectator in a Pakistan 1992 World Cup shirt featuring Imran Khan pictured during the Edgbaston test match between England and Pakistan, 9 September 2026 (Philip Brown/Getty Images)
Three years in a prison cell have not broken the cricketing great and former PM – they have made him impossible to ignore.
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Imran Khan is still “not out”Imran Khan is still “not out”
There is something remarkable happening in the cricketing world, and it has nothing to do with cricket. Seven former Australian cricket captains (Opens in new window) have approached the Australian government to make a humanitarian plea for Imran Khan.
Imran Khan, one of the biggest names in world cricket, played many great innings throughout his long international career, including leading Pakistan to its only World Cup victory in Melbourne in 1992.
Thirty-four years later, he is still in the headlines, with leading international cricketers including Greg Chappell, Sunil Gavaskar and Australian captain Pat Cummins (Opens in new window) in support.
That’s because Khan’s finest innings is unfolding more than three decades later, from a prison cell in Pakistan, where he is serving multiple sentences after falling on the wrong side of the country’s powerful military.
The more pressure applied to break him, the more powerful the symbolism of his imprisonment becomes.
How did one of the greatest cricketing stars of his era end up in prison?
Educated at Oxford, he went on to become one of cricket’s finest all-rounders and eventually captained Pakistan to World Cup glory.
After losing his mother to cancer, he devoted much of his post-cricket life to building charitable cancer hospitals in Pakistan. In the process, he came to believe that the country’s politics was not merely broken, but rigged against its poorest citizens.
So he founded Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf – the Movement for Justice.
And that is where his troubles began.
A man once among the most loved figures in Pakistan became a political enemy of the country’s two dominant political dynasties and the military establishment that took turns ruling the country for much of its history.
After more than two decades of political struggle, Khan became prime minister in 2018, only to be removed less than four years later through a military-backed vote of no confidence in the parliament (Opens in new window).
But instead of fading away, his popularity grew (Opens in new window), and so did the anxiety within the country’s centres of power.
He was then hit with scores of criminal cases (Opens in new window), ranging from corruption and terrorism-related charges to one of the more bizarre cases in recent Pakistani political history, concerning the legality of his marriage. His opponents labelled him everything from a “Zionist agent” to a “blasphemer” in an effort to discredit him, putting his life in danger.
In November 2022, he survived an assassination attempt after being shot in the leg during a political march.
The more pressure brought against him, the more popular he became.
Suppports of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party hold a demonstration demanding the release of jailed party founder and former Prime Minister Imran Khan, in Peshawar, Pakistan, 5 August 2026 (Hussain Ali/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Eventually, Khan was arrested and imprisoned. He has now spent roughly three years behind bars, with much of the past year in prolonged isolation. During this period, not a single image of Khan has been made public and the media has been barred (Opens in new window) from even mentioning his name.
During this time his health has deteriorated, including severe damage to one eye (Opens in new window) and intense psychological trauma.
Khan has nevertheless refused to give up.
That has created an unusual dilemma for Pakistan’s military, which has historically muscled out popular political leaders through imprisonments, and forced exiles.
Khan has so far refused to play that game.
At 73, he appears even more entrenched in his faith and political purpose. The result is a deadlock: the more pressure applied to break him, the more powerful the symbolism of his imprisonment becomes.
It is in this context that Pakistan’s Supreme Court recently intervened (Opens in new window) and ordered that he receive treatment at a private medical hospital, which was refused by the government.
This created the latest public outrage and drew the attention of the international cricketing community, with leading former players and captains calling for Khan to receive proper medical treatment and humane treatment in custody.
Most great cricketers play their cricket, make their money and spend the rest of their lives in retirement, administration or commentary.
Khan had other ideas.
He took the fighting spirit, discipline and lessons of the gentleman’s game and carried them into politics, determined to change a system that had condemned millions of Pakistanis to the twin curses of poverty and injustice.
For many Pakistanis, he is now paying the price for standing up to that system.
For Khan, though, it is a fight worth fighting. And perhaps the cricketer in him still sees politics the same way he once saw the game:
As long as he is at the crease, he is not out.
About the author
Hussain Nadim
Dr Hussain Nadim is a Professorial Lecturer at George Washington University and the former Executive Director of Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) based in Islamabad.
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