Pakistan Cricket Board Complains to Sky Sports Over Imran Khan Interview
The Pakistan Cricket Board has lodged a formal complaint with Sky Sports after the broadcaster aired an interview with Imran Khan’s sons during coverage of the second Test at Lord’s, dragging one of cricket’s most prestigious stages into the heart of Pakistan’s political crisis.
The interview with Kasim and Sulaiman Khan, shown on the first day’s play, went well beyond the usual soft-focus family pieces that dot a long Test broadcast. Khan’s sons used the platform to raise sharp concerns about the Pakistan government’s treatment of their father, the former prime minister and World Cup‑winning captain, who has been held in solitary confinement for the past three years.
Their words cut into a story that has been building far from the middle. Khan’s legal team have long described his conditions in jail as “slow-motion murder”, language that underlines the gravity of his supporters’ claims. His sister has gone further, alleging that he has been tortured while in custody.
Last week, there appeared to be a brief easing. After a supreme court ruling allowed his temporary release, the 73-year-old was moved to a hospital for treatment. Any sense of respite proved fleeting; he has since been returned to prison.
The PCB’s complaint centres on Sky’s decision to give airtime to voices openly critical of the Pakistani government during an international broadcast. The exact wording and scope of the complaint remain undisclosed, but the board’s move makes clear its displeasure at seeing the country’s political turmoil aired alongside its national team.
Sky has acknowledged receiving the complaint. It chose not to expand on that when approached by the Guardian, declining to comment on the matter. The England and Wales Cricket Board has also been informed of the PCB’s grievances and has similarly refused to be drawn into public discussion.
While boards and broadcasters keep their statements tight, some of the game’s biggest names have been far less restrained. Khan’s situation has been thrust into the spotlight by many of the sport’s great former players, who have signed two joint letters appealing for “humane treatment and proper medical care” for the former all-rounder.
The first of those letters was published in February. The group behind it reads like a roll call of modern cricket: six former England captains, former India captain Kapil Dev, and former Australian batters Adam Gilchrist and Greg Chappell among them. This week they returned with a second, more pointed message, demanding “a full and independent assessment of his health”, with particular concern over his right eye.
According to Khan’s lawyers, he has already lost 85% of the vision in that eye, damage they attribute directly to his prison conditions. For a man whose life once revolved around watching the seam, judging length, reading the flight, the detail is a brutal one.
One detail stands out just as starkly: not a single Pakistani cricketer has signed the letters. In a country where cricket and politics have always run close, that silence may say as much about the pressures of the present as any formal complaint sent to a broadcaster’s inbox.
