The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has reportedly objected to a British broadcaster airing an interview with the sons of jailed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and former prime minister Imran Khan during the Lord’s Test on Thursday.
The PCB contacted Sky Sports ahead of the lunch break on Day 1 to protest the interview, threatening that Pakistan players would not return to the field after lunch if it aired, according to ESPN Cricinfo.
As talks with the cricket board continued, Sky delayed the interview before eventually airing the 18-minute clip.
Khan’s family and party have long raised concerns about his health, claiming he has been kept in solitary confinement at Adiala jail.
Last week, the Supreme Court ordered authorities to transfer Khan to Shifa International Hospital for medical assessment and treatment.
However, he was taken to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), where doctors from Shifa were also present, according to Information Minister Attaullah Tarar.
The PTI founder’s medical examination was conducted in the presence of his sister and his doctors, he said.
During the Sky interview — conducted by former England captain Mike Atherton — Khan’s sons, Suleiman and Kasim Khan, raised alarm over their father’s health, saying they feared for his life, according to the report.
Pakistan were preparing to return to the field to resume the second session by the time the interview ended, it said.
The development comes days after several former international cricket captains renewed their appeal to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for the medical treatment of the jailed PTI founder, in line with the Supreme Court’s directives.
At least 21 former international cricket captains wrote a letter to PM Shehbaz that stated: “Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered that Imran Khan be transferred to hospital for examination by a medical board that was to include his own personal physicians and his sister, Dr Uzma Khan.”
However, the cricket legends said Khan’s hospital stay lasted only a few hours.
“He was examined by a state-appointed team rather than the board the Court had directed, declared ‘medically fit’, and returned to Adiala Jail before that board could complete its work. His family and legal team say this falls short of what the Court ordered,” they claimed in the letter, cited by Cricinfo.
Khan’s former wife, Jemima Goldsmith, also urged the UK government earlier this week to step in and not remain silent over the alleged treatment being meted out to her ex-husband.
“Prime Minister @andyburnham and Foreign Secretary @Ed_Miliband: how much longer will Britain remain silent?” Jemima, the former wife who shares two sons with the ex-prime minister, wrote in a post on X.
Jemima said that the PTI founder has been “brutally penalised by his political opponents”, claiming he has “endured 3 years of solitary confinement”.