Michael Holding Reflects on Imran Khan's Fall from Grace

Michael Holding’s voice drops when he reaches Imran Khan’s name. The fast bowler who once terrorised batters across the world now sounds helpless.

Imran, Pakistan’s World Cup-winning captain and former Prime Minister, has been in prison since 2023 amid a stack of legal cases. His family say he is being denied basic facilities, even books. Medical care, they claim, is inadequate. For one of Pakistan’s most recognisable figures, it is a stark, brutal fall.

The debate around his treatment flared again during the Lord’s Test between England and Pakistan. On the sidelines, Michael Atherton interviewed Imran’s sons, Sulaiman and Kasim. The conversation ran for 18 minutes. It was emotional, raw, and pointed. They spoke of “unfair treatment” and described how their father was not receiving proper medical attention.

The Pakistan Cricket Board were furious. So unhappy, in fact, that they threatened to pull out of the Lord’s fixture if the interview went to air. Sky Sports broadcast it anyway.

For Holding, who faced Imran in international cricket and later walked the streets of London with him on a very different mission, the images and accounts coming out of Pakistan cut deep.

“I'll mention one name, Imran Khan, but you probably don't want to go down the political route, and I don't want to either, but that's a sad story,” Holding told Sports Now, choosing his words carefully but not softening the blow.

He then rewound the clock. This was not just a passing acquaintance. Their careers intersected on the field, but their bond strengthened away from it.

“I played with Imran, I wouldn't say I played a lot. I played some one-day games with him. I played county cricket, a few games against Imran, but apart from playing with Imran, I have spent time with Imran,” Holding recalled.

The memories that stay with him are not of bouncers or outswingers, but of charity work. In the 1990s, Imran roamed London trying to raise money for the cancer hospital that would become one of his defining legacies. Holding was there.

“When Imran was going around London looking to garner funds for that cancer hospital, I went around with him, I tried to support him as best as I possibly could, where that was concerned. So I know the man, and I know exactly what type of person that he is,” Holding said. “And it's extremely sad to see the situation now and what is going on with Imran Khan.”

The contrast is jarring: a man once celebrated for building a hospital now, according to his family, struggling to access basic medical care himself.

Holding’s frustration is not just personal, it is moral. He cannot understand why a figure of Imran’s stature is, in his view, being stripped of basic dignity.

Holding has thrown his weight behind the group of former Pakistan captains who wrote to the authorities demanding humane treatment for Imran. He does not pretend to know whether their intervention will change anything, but he is clear where he stands.

“I am in total support of the captains who wrote that letter. I don't know what effect it will have, but I am in total support of trying to get the man to be treated just like another human being,” he said. “You don't treat human beings that way. People who have committed murder aren't treated that way. So I don't see the reason why this man should be treated that way.”

The language is blunt. So is the question he raises next.

“I don't know if there's jealousy involved in this, because Imran Khan. I don't think there's a Pakistani that is more well known around the world than Imran Khan. That is ridiculous, the way the man is being treated,” he added.

Jealousy. Recognition. Power. Prison. It is a volatile mix, and Holding wants no part of the political argument that rages around Imran’s fate. His concern is narrower, and in some ways sharper: basic humanity.

From Lord’s, where his sons’ words echoed around a global broadcast, to a prison cell in Pakistan, Imran Khan’s story has moved far beyond cricket. For men like Michael Holding, who knew the cricketer, walked beside the fundraiser, and now watches the prisoner, the question is no longer about politics or popularity.

It is about how a country chooses to treat one of its most famous sons when the stadium lights are off and the cameras have moved on.