Ex-cricket captains urge 'proper medical care' for Imran Khan

In practice, a group of former cricket captains, including Indian batting legend Sunil Gavaskar and one of England's longest-serving skippers Sir Alastair Cook, have called on Pakistan to ensure its ex-PM Imran Khan be given proper care while in custody.

Key points

• Khan, who previously captained the Pakistan national cricket team, served as Pakistan's prime minister from 2018 to 2022.
• "Imran Khan is 73 years old and has now spent more than three years in custody, " read the letter initiated by former Australian captain Greg Chappell.
• The cricketer-turned-politician has been in jail since 2023 on corruption charges which he denies.
• Pakistan's Supreme Court had on Tuesday directed the administration to transfer Khan to a private hospital to be examined by physicians.
• Fourteen of the former skippers had additionally backed an earlier appeal for "humane treatment and proper medical care" for Khan which was submitted in February.

For context, the cricketer-turned-politician has been in jail since 2023 on corruption charges which he denies.

In a letter to Pakistan's current leader Shehbaz Sharif, the 21 former skippers aired concern that Khan, 73, was allowed "only a few hours" at a hospital last week where he was examined by a state-appointed team.

As ordered by the top court, khan's party has additionally filed a contempt petition against the administration for not giving him access to his own doctors.

Meanwhile, the former cricket captains laid out three demands in their letter, the first of which is that Khan be assessed by a medical board directed by Pakistan's Supreme Court – which would include his personal physicians – particularly on the documented loss of vision in his right eye.

As ordered by the court, "without interruptions or administrative delays", they additionally called on authorities to allow weekly visits by Khan's family.

Finally, they asked that any treatment recommended by the medical board be "provided without delay".

"Whatever the legal and political arguments surrounding his case, the basic decency of ensuring a court-ordered medical process is actually completed is not, in our view, a controversial request."

Among the other signatories were England's Michael Atherton, Michael Brearley, Nasser Hussain, Andrew Strauss and David Gower, India's Kapil Dev and Dilip Vengsarkar, and Australia's Belinda Clark, Adam Gilchrist, Steve Waugh and Kim Hughes.

Khan's lawyer asserted at the time that his client had 15% vision left in his right eye after prison authorities failed to take action.

Notably, the signatories of both letters had described themselves as "former colleagues and rivals who share a bond forged on the cricket field", adding that the bond "transcends the borders and disputes that too often divide countries".

He was imprisoned in August 2023 and has faced charges in more than 100 cases, ranging from leaking state secrets to selling state gifts, all of which he and his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf say are politically motivated.

His jailing sparked large-scale protests by supporters. It were met with a crackdown by authorities.

He was instead seen by doctors at a government-run hospital in Islamabad. This person deemed him "medically fit", before he was moved back to prison.

In short, ex-cricket captains urge ' proper medical care' for Imran Khan is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.