‘Made absolute fools of themselves’: Imran Khan's sons blast PCB over threat to abandon England Test

Sulaiman said he had anticipated a reaction to the interview, but not one involving Pakistan’s participation in an international Test match. “I was expecting some sort of response,” Sulaiman said, “but I didn't think they would be so tactless as to threaten not to take to the field. It shouldn't be in the remit of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to ask for an interview about an ex-Pakistan player, somebody who lived in England for 22 years, to be taken down. This wasn't about politics, but about the humanitarian situation and his health.”

The controversy carries another layer because Naqvi is not only the chairman of the PCB but also Pakistan’s interior minister. Imran, who captained Pakistan to their historic 1992 World Cup triumph before entering politics, has been one of the country’s most prominent opposition figures.

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The allegation has not been independently established, while Pakistani authorities have repeatedly rejected accusations of mistreatment and maintained that Imran has been provided appropriate medical care. Sulaiman, however, said the family remained deeply suspicious of the information emerging about their father’s health.

“The worrying theory we're hearing,” he said, “is that they're drip-feeding these reports of his ailing health and pretending that they're trying to help him, just to lay the ground for something worse to happen. Then they can wash their hands and say: 'He's just an old man who died, and we had nothing to do with it.'”

Their concerns intensified following the controversy surrounding Imran’s medical examination. Pakistan’s Supreme Court had ordered that he be taken to the private Shifa International Hospital, but he was ultimately examined at the state-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences. “It was a complete charade, and very murky from our perspective,” Kasim said. “The doctors at Shifa were left waiting for him with our auntie, who is also a medic. Everyone who had been booked, everything that had been ordered, was just ignored.”

Sulaiman described the episode as appearing like a deliberate diversion. “It seemed like a bait-and-switch,” he said, “in which they did actually dispatch a convoy to Shifa as a decoy, only to send him to PIMS, the same place he had been several times before.”

He also questioned the lack of information available directly to the family. “They haven't given us proof of any of this,” Sulaiman said. “It's all just hearsay from government sources – there's no transparency, they don't want to give anyone access, so how are we supposed to believe any of it? The last verifiable piece of information we had was from him, six months ago, when he spoke about his eye and how it had been neglected.”

The row comes at a particularly difficult time for the PCB, with Pakistan also enduring a troubled tour on the field. But the sons’ latest remarks have ensured that the most damaging questions surrounding the board are no longer restricted to cricketing results.

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