SRINAGAR: Twenty-one former international cricket captains, including Indian cricket legends Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Dilip Vengsarkar, have renewed their appeal to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for proper medical treatment and welfare of jailed former Pakistan prime minister and 1992 World Cup-winning captain Imran Khan.
The appeal, made in a letter dated August 23, comes six months after 14 former international captains had written to the Pakistani government seeking humane treatment and appropriate medical care for Khan. Seven more former captains have now joined the appeal.
The former captains said their latest intervention followed developments surrounding a recent Supreme Court order directing that Khan be shifted to a hospital for examination by a medical board comprising his personal physicians and his sister, Dr Uzma Khan.
The court had also reinstated weekly family visits, according to the letter.
However, the former cricketers said Khan’s hospital stay lasted only a few hours and that he was examined by a state-appointed team rather than the medical board directed by the Supreme Court. He was subsequently declared “medically fit” and returned to Adiala Jail before the court-directed board could complete its assessment, they said.
Khan’s family and legal team have maintained that the process fell short of the Supreme Court’s directions.
The former captains said they were not seeking to interfere in Pakistan’s domestic legal proceedings but urged authorities to allow the court-directed medical board to complete a “full and independent assessment” of Khan’s health, particularly amid reports of loss of vision in his right eye.
They made three specific requests: that the Supreme Court-directed medical board be allowed to complete its assessment; that weekly family visits be honoured without interruption or administrative delays; and that any treatment recommended by the medical assessment be provided without delay.
“Imran Khan is 73 years old and has now spent more than three years in custody,” the former captains said, arguing that ensuring the completion of a court-ordered medical process was a matter of basic decency rather than a political demand.
The initiative was led by former Australia captain Greg Chappell, who was also behind the first appeal issued in February. The latest letter said the former players were writing not as politicians but as former colleagues and rivals bound by their shared connection to cricket.
The signatories include Michael Atherton, Alex Blackwell, Allan Border, Michael Brearley, Greg Chappell, Ian Chappell, Belinda Clark, Alastair Cook, Sunil Gavaskar, Lee Germon, Adam Gilchrist, David Gower, Kim Hughes, Nasser Hussain, Sir Clive Lloyd, Kapil Dev, Arjuna Ranatunga, Sir Andrew Strauss, Dilip Vengsarkar, Stephen Waugh and John Wright.
The former captains expressed hope that the matter would be resolved expeditiously and with the dignity they said Khan deserved.
