ISLAMABAD – Twenty-one former Test and international cricket captains from around the world have written another letter to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, calling for a medical examination and appropriate treatment of former Pakistan captain and former prime minister Imran Khan.
According to cricket website ESPNcricinfo, the former captains said in their letter that the Supreme Court had directed that Imran Khan be shifted to a hospital for a medical examination by a board that would include his personal doctors and his sister, Dr Uzma Khan. The court had also ordered the restoration of weekly family meetings.
The former captains expressed concern that Imran Khan’s hospital stay lasted only a few hours and that, instead of the medical board directed by the Supreme Court, he was examined by an officially appointed team, which declared him medically fit and transferred him back to Adiala Jail.
The signatories made three key demands: that a medical board, as directed by the Supreme Court, be allowed to conduct a complete and independent examination of Imran Khan, particularly regarding his reported loss of vision in the right eye; that weekly family meetings be ensured without interruption; and that any treatment recommended on the basis of the medical examination be provided immediately.
The signatories include Michael Atherton, Alex Blackwell, Allan Border, Michael Brearley, Greg Chappell, Ian Chappell, Belinda Clark, Alastair Cook, Michael Gatting, Sunil Gavaskar, Lee Germon, Adam Gilchrist, David Gower, Kim Hughes, Nasser Hussain, Clive Lloyd, Kapil Dev, Arjuna Ranatunga, Andrew Strauss, Dilip Vengsarkar, Steve Waugh and John Wright.
The former captains clarified that they were making the appeal not as politicians but as former teammates and opponents of Imran Khan on the cricket field, and said they had no intention of interfering in Pakistan’s internal legal affairs.
This is the second letter sent to the prime minister by former international captains within six months. In February this year, 14 former captains had also expressed concern over reports about Imran Khan’s health and alleged impairment of vision in one eye.
