Who is Imran Khan?

Imran Khan is a former international cricketer and is the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan. Other than being the captain of the Pakistan national cricket team, he was chancellor of the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom from 2005 and 2014. In 1996, Khan founded the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and serves as its chairman. In memory of his mother, he launched a fundraising campaign to set up a cancer hospital in Lahore and raised $25 million.

 

Born in Lahore, his paternal family are of Pashtun ethnicity and belong to the Niazi tribe. Khan grew up with his four sisters in upper-middle-class circumstances. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School Worcester in England, where he excelled at cricket. He enrolled in Keble College, Oxford in 1972 where he studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, graduating in 1975.

Cricketing years

 

Khan made his Test cricket debut against England in 1971 at Edgbaston. In 1976, he returned to Pakistan and secured a permanent place on the national team. During the late 1970s, Khan was one of the pioneers of the reverse swing bowling technique. He also has the second-highest all-time batting average of 61.86 for a Test batsman playing at position 6 in the batting order.

 

Khan took over the captaincy of the Pakistan cricket team in 1982 till his retirement.

 

Khan played his last Test match for Pakistan in January 1992, against Sri Lanka at Faisalabad, ending his career with 88 Test matches, 126 innings, and scored 3807 runs at an average of 37.69, including six centuries and 18 fifties.

 

Coming to politics

 

On 25 April 1996, Khan founded Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and ran for the seat of National Assembly of Pakistan in 1997 Pakistani general election as a candidate of PTI from two constituencies – Mianwali and Lahore – but was unsuccessful and lost both the seats to candidates of Pakistan Muslim League.

 

He again participated in the October 2002 Pakistani general election and was prepared to form a coalition if his party did not get a majority of the vote. He was elected from Mianwali.

 

On 30 October 2011, Khan addressed more than 100,000 supporters in Lahore, challenging the policies of the government. Another successful public gathering of hundreds of thousands of supporters was held in Karachi in 2011. Since then, he became a real threat to the ruling parties in Pakistan. Between 2011 and 2013, Khan and Nawaz Sharif began to engage each other in a bitter feud.

 

Becoming PM

 

In the 2018 General Elections, Khan contested the poll from Bannu, Islamabad, Mianwali, Lahore, and Karachi East. On July 28, the Election Commission of Pakistan announced that the PTI had won a total of 116 of the 270 seats contested.

 

During his victory speech, he laid out the policy outlines for his future government. Khan said his inspiration is to build Pakistan as a humanitarian state based on principles of the first Islamic state of Medina. On foreign policy, he praised China and hoped to have better relations with Afghanistan, the United States, and India.

 

On February 22, 2022, Khan said that he would like to have a TV debate with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to resolve differences between the two neighbouring countries.

 

He made the remarks during an interview with Russia's state-run television network RT on the eve of his maiden two-day visit to Moscow - the first by a Pakistani premier in over two decades during which he would hold talks with President Vladimir Putin and review exchange views on major regional and international issues.