Imran Khan

Imran Khan Niazi PP, HI .. is a Pakistani politician, former cricketer and philanthropist who leads the Pakistan Movement of Justice and serves as a member of the National Assembly. Prior to entering politics, Khan played international cricket for two decades in the late twentieth century.

Khan was born to a Pashtun family in Lahore in 1952 and educated at Aitchison, Worcester and later at the Keble College, Oxford. Khan started playing cricket at the age of 13. Initially playing for his college and later for the Worcestershire Cricket Club, he made his debut for Pakistan at the age of 18 during the 1971 English series at Birmingham. After graduating from Oxford, Khan joined Pakistan's national cricket team in 1976, and played until 1992. Khan also served as the team's captain intermittently throughout 1982–1992. He, notably, led Pakistan to victory at the 1992 Cricket World Cup, Pakistan's first and only victory in that competition.

Khan retired from cricket in 1992 as one of Pakistan's most successful players. In total he made 3,807 runs and took 362 wickets in Test cricket, and is one of eight world cricketers to have achieved an 'All-rounder's Triple' in Test matches.He was later, in 2010, inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. In 1991, he launched a fundraising campaign to set up a cancer hospital in memory of his mother. He raised $25 million to set up the first hospital in Lahore in 1994, and later in 2015 a second hospital in Peshawar.Khan remains a prominent philanthropist and commenter, and served as the chancellor of Bradford University between 2005 and 2014 and was the recipient of an honorary fellowship by the Royal College of Physicians in 2012.

In April 1996, Khan founded the Pakistan Movement for Justice, a centrist political party, and became the party's national leader. Khan contested for a seat in the National Assembly in October 2002 and served as an opposition member from Mianwali until 2007. He was again elected to the parliament in the 2013 elections, when his party emerged as the second largest in the country by popular vote. Khan serves as the parliamentary leader of the party and leads the third largest block of parliamentarians in the National Assembly since 2013. His party also leads a coalition government in north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.Khan remains a popular political figure and is the author of, among other publications, Pakistan: A Personal History

Cricket career

Khan made a lackluster first-class cricket debut at the age of sixteen in Lahore. By the start of the 1970s, he was playing for his home teams of Lahore A (1969–70), Lahore B (1969–70), Lahore Greens (1970–71) and, eventually, Lahore (1970–71).^[38] Khan was part of University of Oxford's Blues Cricket team during the 1973–1975 seasons.At Worcestershire, where he played county cricket from 1971 to 1976, he was regarded as only an average medium-pace bowler. During this decade, other teams represented by Khan included Dawood Industries (1975–1976) and Pakistan International Airlines (1975–1976 to 1980–1981). From 1983 to 1988, he played for Sussex.

Khan made his Test cricket debut against England in 1971 Edgbaston. Three years later, he debuted in the One Day International(ODI) match, once again playing against England at Trent Bridge for the Prudential Trophy. After graduating from Oxford and finishing his tenure at Worcestershire, he returned to Pakistan in 1976 and secured a permanent place on his native national team starting from the 1976–1977 season, during which they faced New Zealand and Australia.Following the Australian series, he toured the West Indies, where he met Tony Greig, who signed him up for Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket.His credentials as one of the fastest bowlers of the world started to become established when he finished third at 139.7 km/h in a fast bowling contest at Perth in 1978, behind Jeff Thomson and Michael Holding, but ahead of Dennis Lillee, Garth Le Roux and Andy Roberts.

As a fast bowler, Khan reached the peak of his powers in 1982. In 9 Tests, he got 62 wickets at 13.29 each, the lowest average of any bowler in Test history with at least 50 wickets in a calendar year.In January 1983, playing against India, he attained a Test bowling rating of 922 points. Although calculated retrospectively (ICC player ratings did not exist at the time), Khan's form and performance during this period ranks third in the ICC's All-Time Test Bowling Rankings.

Khan achieved the all-rounder's triple (securing 3000 runs and 300 wickets) in 75 Tests, the second fastest record behind Ian Botham's 72. He is also established as having the second highest all-time batting average of 61.86 for a Test batsman playing at position 6 of the batting order.He played his last Test match for Pakistan in January 1992, against Sri Lanka at Faisalabad. Khan retired permanently from cricket six months after his last ODI, the historic 1992 World Cup final against England in Melbourne, Australia.He ended his career with 88 Test matches, 126 innings and scored 3807 runs at an average of 37.69, including six centuries and 18 fifties. His highest score was 136 runs. As a bowler, he took 362 wickets in Test cricket, which made him the first Pakistani and world's fourth bowler to do so.^[8] In ODIs, he played 175 matches and scored 3709 runs at an average of 33.41. His highest score remains 102 not out. His best ODI bowling is documented at 6 wickets for 14 runs.He holds the record for the best bowling figures by any bowler in an ODI innings in a losing cause(6-14)

initial era,,,

In 1996, Khan founded a political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Khan supported General Pervez Musharraf's military coup in 1999, believing Musharraf would "end corruption, clear out the political mafias".According to Khan, he was Musharraf's choice for prime minister in 2002 but turned down the offer.The 2002 Pakistani general election in October across 272 constituencies, Khan anticipated in the elections and was prepared to form a coalition if his party did not get a majority of the vote.He was elected from Mianwali.He has also served as a part of the Standing Committees on Kashmir and Public Accounts. On 6 May 2005, Khan was mentioned in The New Yorker as being the "most directly responsible" for drawing attention in the Muslim world to the Newsweek story about the alleged desecration of the Qur'an in a US military prison at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.In June 2007, Khan faced political opponents in and outside the parliament.

On 2 October 2007, as part of the All Parties Democratic Movement, Khan joined 85 other MPs to resign from Parliament in protest of the presidential election scheduled for 6 October, which general Musharraf was contesting without resigning as army chief.On 3 November 2007, Khan was put under house arrest, after president Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan. Later Khan escaped and went into hiding.He eventually came out of hiding on 14 November to join a student protest at the University of the Punjab.At the rally, Khan was captured by activists from the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami and roughly treated.

On 30 October 2011, Khan addressed more than 100,000 supporters in Lahore, challenging the policies of the government, calling that new change a "tsunami" against the ruling parties, Another successful public gathering of hundreds of thousands of supporters was held in Karachi on 25 December 2011.Since then Khan has become a real threat to the ruling parties and a future political prospect in Pakistan. According to the International Republican Institute's (IRI's) survey, Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) tops the list of popular parties in Pakistan both at the national and provincial level.