Former World Cup-winning captain Imran Khan has been left out of a Pakistan Cricket Board commemoratory video, leaving Pakistan cricket fans outraged.
Ostensibly released as part of celebrations for Pakistan’s Independence Day, which falls on August 14, the video detailed some of the highlights of Pakistani cricket over the years, dating back to the nation’s international debut in 1952.
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Khan stands almost universally as the greatest cricketer the nation has ever produced, taking 362 Test wickets at an average of 22.81 while also scoring 3,807 runs at an average of 37.69 with six hundreds.
At his prime, his form and performances for Pakistan in the 1980s rank him third in the ICC’s All-Time Test Bowling Rankings.
The pinnacle of his career, as with Pakistan cricket generally, came in 1992, when he led the nation to the most unlikely of World Cup victories – his rousing “cornered tigers” speech stands in cricket folklore as the stuff of legend, and it stood alone as Pakistan’s only ICC silverware until 2009.
Despite this, Khan was noticeably absent from the tribute video, with the only photos of the 1992 triumph leaving out the captain that took Pakistan to it.
Since retiring from cricket, Khan entered politics, founding the “anti-status quo” political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and became the Prime Minister of Pakistan in 2018, serving for four years before being removed from office after a successful National Assembly vote of no-confidence in 2022.
While Khan claimed his removal was a “foreign conspiracy”, he was later charged with corruption and having incorrectly declared details of presents from foreign dignitaries.
Khan was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, and barred for holding public office for five years.
He is currently in custody in a prison near the country’s capital, Islamabad, pending an appeal to begin in the nation’s High Court on August 16.
His lawyers have described the conviction as “without lawful authority, tainted with bias”, and said that the 70-year-old had not received an adequate hearing.
Social media was in outrage at Khan’s exclusion from the tribute, labelling it a political act.
Cricket journalist Farid Khan said it was “not cool”.
“1992 World Cup winner Imran Khan missing from this, no mention of him in the trophy / celebration pics too! Liked the video and then pressed the undo button,” Khan wrote.
“Not cool, guys.”
Sports journalist Rizwan Haider saw it as an affront to democratic ideals.
“One can have an idea from this post of PCB how democratic we are,” Haider wrote.
“Not a glimpse of World Cup winning captain Imran Khan in this video clip.”
Haider went on (in Urdu) to criticise the treatment of Khan, likening his disappearance in the video to the forthcoming disappearance of his vote in Pakistan’s upcoming elections.
Cricinfo writer Osman Samiuddin, joked it wouldn’t be possible to even celebrate Pakistani cricket without Khan.
“No way you can make a video celebration Pakistani cricket without the greatest Pakistani cricket ever,” Samiuddin wrote, swapping beer in his expression for a popular Pakistani soft drink.
“PCB: Hold my Pakola.”
Samiuddin’s Cricinfo colleague, Danyal Rasool, said the PCB’s video was impressive – in a way.
“Tales some special effort to get roasted on your own account by your own fans, on Independence Day, celebrating your own greatest cricketing achievements,” Rasool wrote.
“But they’ve managed it with ease.”
Former Pakistan women’s captain Urooj Mumtaz Khan was incredulous at the omission.
“Reminiscing on Pakistan cricket’s history, 11 images of the 1992 World Cup win and not one pic or mention of the greatest that ever played the game for the country,” Khan wrote.
“Imran Khan will go down in history as one of the greats of the global game!”
