Michael Holding's Distress Over Imran Khan's Treatment
Michael Holding’s voice tightens when he gets to Imran Khan.
The legendary West Indies fast bowler has seen plenty in cricket and in life, but the fate of his former opponent and occasional teammate has cut unusually deep. Imran, Pakistan’s World Cup-winning captain and former Prime Minister, has been in prison since 2023 amid a flurry of legal cases. His family say he is being denied even basic facilities such as books and proper medical care.
For Holding, that is intolerable.
The issue burst back into the spotlight during the recent Lord’s Test between England and Pakistan. On the sidelines of the match, Michael Atherton interviewed Imran’s sons, Sulaiman and Kasim, in a segment that quickly moved beyond cricket. The pair spoke of “unfair treatment” and described how their father, one of Pakistan’s most recognisable figures, was not receiving adequate medical attention behind bars.
The Pakistan Cricket Board did not like it. The PCB even threatened to pull out of the Lord’s fixture if the interview went to air. Sky Sports did not back down. The broadcaster ran the full 18‑minute piece, and the images and words of Imran’s sons ricocheted around the cricketing world.
Holding watched, and felt only distress.
“I'll mention one name, Imran Khan, but you probably don't want to go down the political route, and I don't want to either, but that's a sad story,” he told Sports Now, making it clear this was not about party lines or policies. It was about a man he knows.
Their connection goes back decades. Holding did not share a dressing room with Imran for long stretches, but their paths crossed often enough to form a bond. They faced each other in county cricket. They played one-day internationals in the same era. The respect was forged there, then deepened far from the middle.
“When Imran was going around London looking to garner funds for that cancer hospital, I went around with him, I tried to support him as best as I possibly could,” Holding recalled. “So I know the man, and I know exactly what type of person that he is. And it's extremely sad to see the situation now and what is going on with Imran Khan.”
That hospital – the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre – became one of Imran’s defining off-field legacies, a project built on relentless fundraising tours and the pulling power of his name. Holding saw the work up close. He saw the commitment. That memory now collides painfully with the current reality of a 71‑year‑old former cricketer locked in a cell.
Holding is not alone in his anger. A group of former Pakistan captains recently signed a letter calling for Imran to be treated with basic human dignity. Holding has thrown his weight firmly behind them.
“I am in total support of the captains who wrote that letter,” he said. “I don't know what effect it will have, but I am in total support of trying to get the man to be treated just like another human being. You don't treat human beings that way. People who have committed murder aren't treated that way. So I don't see the reason why this man should be treated that way.”
The language is blunt, the frustration obvious. Holding is not arguing legal guilt or innocence. He is arguing for minimum standards, for a man he believes is being singled out.
He then goes a step further, questioning the motives behind the treatment.
“I don't know if there's jealousy involved in this, because Imran Khan. I don't think there's a Pakistani that is more well known around the world than Imran Khan,” Holding said. “That is ridiculous, the way the man is being treated.”
A global icon of Pakistan cricket, a former World Cup-winning captain, a former Prime Minister, now at the centre of a bruising legal and political storm. And one of the game’s great fast bowlers, a rival who became an ally, is left asking why a figure of such stature is being denied what he calls the most basic measure of respect: to be treated, simply, “like another human being.”
