Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi Biography Lifestyle Early life and Family Cricket Career Personal life

Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi Biography Lifestyle Early life and Family Cricket Career Personal life

Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi

Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi HI PP 'Born 5 October 1952' is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Pakistan and the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf PTI. Before entering politics, Khan was an international cricketer and captain of the Pakistan national cricket team, which he led to victory in the 1992 Cricket World Cup. N.1
Khan was born to a landowning Pashtun family of Mianwali in Lahore in 1952: he was educated at Aitchison College in Lahore, then the Royal Grammar School Worcester in Worcester, and later at Keble College, Oxford. He started playing cricket at age 13, and made his debut for the Pakistan national cricket team at age 18, during a 1971 Test series against England. After graduating from Oxford, he made his home debut for Pakistan in 1976, and played until 1992. He also served as the team's captain intermittently between 1982 and 1992, notably leading Pakistan to victory at the 1992 Cricket World Cup, Pakistan's first and only victory in the competition.
Khan retired from cricket in 1992, as one of Pakistans most successful players. In total he made 3807 runs and took 362 wickets in Test cricket, and is one of eight world cricketers to have achieved an 'All rounders Triple' in Test matches. After retiring, he faced scandal after admitting to tampering with the ball with a bottle top in his youth. In 2003, he became a coach in Pakistan's domestic cricket circuit, and in 2010, he was 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 a hospital in Lahore in 1994, and set up a second hospital in Peshawar in 2015. Khan remains a prominent philanthropist and commentator, having expanded the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital to also include a research centre, and founded Namal College in 2008. Khan also served as the chancellor of the University of Bradford 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 Tehreek-e-Insaf 'lit- Pakistan Movement for Justice', a centrist political party, and became the parties 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 served as the parliamentary leader of the party and led the third-largest block of parliamentarians in the National Assembly from 2013 to 2018. His party also led a coalition government in the north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In the 2018 general elections, his party won the largest number of seats and defeated the ruling PML-N, bringing Khan to premiership and the PTI into federal government for the first time.
Khan remains a popular public figure and is the author of, among other publications, Pakistan- A Personal History.

Early life and family

Further information: Family of Imran Khan
Khan was born in Lahore on 5 October 1952. Some reports suggest he was born on 25 November 1952. It was reported that 25 November was wrongly mentioned by Pakistan Cricket Board officials on his passport. He is the only son of Ikramullah Khan Niazi, a civil engineer, and his wife Shaukat Khanum, and has four sisters. Long settled in Mianwali in northwestern Punjab, his paternal family are of Pashtun ethnicity and belong to the Niazi tribe, and one of his ancestors, Haibat Khan Niazi, in the 16th century, "was one of Sher Shah Suri's leading generals, as well as being the governor of Punjab."Khan's mother hailed from the Pashtun tribe of Burki, which had produced several successful cricketers in Pakistan's history, including his cousins Javed Burki and Majid Khan. Maternally, Khan is also a descendant of the Sufi warrior-poet and inventor of the Pashto alphabet, Pir Roshan, who hailed from his maternal families ancestral Kaniguram town located in South Waziristan in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan. His maternal family was based in Basti Danishmanda, Jalandhar, India for about 600 years.
A quiet and shy boy in his youth, Khan grew up with his sisters in relatively affluent, upper middle-class circumstances and received a privileged education. He was educated at the Aitchison College and Cathedral School in Lahore, and then the Royal Grammar School Worcester in England, where he excelled at cricket. In 1972, he enrolled in Keble College, Oxford where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics, graduating in 1975.

Cricket career

Khan made his first-class cricket debut at the age of 16 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). Khan was part of the 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 June 1971 at Edgbaston. Three years later, in August 1974, 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 in 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. During the late 1970s, Khan was one of the pioneers of the reverse swing bowling technique. He imparted this trick to the bowling duo of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, who mastered and popularised this art in later years.
As a fast bowler, Khan reached his peak in 1982. In 9 Tests, he took 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 (International Cricket Council (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 also has the second-highest all-time batting average of 61.86 for a Test batsman playing at position 6 in 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. As a bowler, he took 362 wickets in Test cricket, which made him the first Pakistani and world's fourth bowler to do so. In ODIs, he played 175 matches and scored 3709 runs at an average of 33.41. His highest score was 102 not out. His best ODI bowling was 6 wickets for 14 runs, a record for the best bowling figures by any bowler in an ODI innings in a losing cause.

Captaincy

At the height of his career, in 1982, the thirty-year-old Khan took over the captaincy of the Pakistan cricket team from Javed Miandad. As a captain, Khan played 48 Test matches, of which 14 were won by Pakistan, 8 lost and the remaining 26 were drawn. He also played 139 ODIs, winning 77, losing 57 and ending one in a tie.
In the team's second match, Khan led them to their first Test win on English soil for 28 years at Lord's. Khan's first year as captain was the peak of his legacy as a fast bowler as well as an all-rounder. He recorded the best Test bowling of his career while taking 8 wickets for 58 runs against Sri Lanka at Lahore in 1981–1982. He also topped both the bowling and batting averages against England in three Test series in 1982, taking 21 wickets and averaging 56 with the bat. Later the same year, he put up a highly acknowledged performance in a home series against the formidable Indian team by taking 40 wickets in six Tests at an average of 13.95. By the end of this series in 1982–1983, Khan had taken 88 wickets in 13 Test matches over a period of one year as captain. This same Test series against India, however, also resulted in a stress fracture in his shin that kept him out of cricket for more than two years. An experimental treatment funded by the Pakistani government helped him recover by the end of 1984 and he made a successful comeback to international cricket in the latter part of the 1984–1985 season.
In India in 1987, Khan led Pakistan in its first-ever Test series win and this was followed by Pakistan's first series victory in England during the same year. During the 1980s, his team also recorded three creditable draws against the West Indies. India and Pakistan co-hosted the 1987 Cricket World Cup, but neither ventured beyond the semi-finals. Khan retired from international cricket at the end of the World Cup. In 1988, he was asked to return to the captaincy by the President of Pakistan, General Zia-Ul-Haq, and on 18 January, he announced his decision to rejoin the team. Soon after returning to the captaincy, Khan led Pakistan to another winning tour in the West Indies, which he has recounted as "the last time I really bowled well". He was declared Man of the Series against West Indies in 1988 when he took 23 wickets in 3 Tests. Khan's career-high as a captain and cricketer came when he led Pakistan to victory in the 1992 Cricket World Cup. Playing with a brittle batting line-up, Khan promoted himself as a batsman to play in the top order along with Javed Miandad, but his contribution as a bowler was minimal. At the age of 39, Khan took the winning last wicket himself.

Personal life

He had numerous relationships during his bachelor life. He was then known as a hedonistic bachelor and a playboy who was active on the London nightclub circuit. He had numerous girlfriends during his bachelor life. Many are unknown and were called 'mysterious blondes' by British newspaper The Times. Some of his out of marriage relationships included relationship with Zeenat Aman, Emma Sergeant, Susie Murray-Philipson, Sita White, Sarah Crawley, Stephanie Beacham, Goldie Hawn, Kristiane Backer, Susannah Constantine, Marie Helvin, Caroline Kellett, Liza Campbell, Anastasia Cooke, Hannah Mary Rothschild, Jerry Hall, and Lulu Blacker.
His first girlfriend, Emma Sergeant, an artist and the daughter of British investor Sir Patrick Sergeant, introduced him to socialites. They first met in 1982 and subsequently visited Pakistan. She accompanied him on various Pakistani cricket team tours including in Peshawar and Australian tour. After long separations, his relationship with Sergeant was broken in 1986. He then had a short relationship with Susie Murray-Philipson whom he invited to Pakistan and had dinner with in 1982. She also made various artistic portraits of Khan during their relationship.
In a book published in 2009, Christopher Sandford claimed that former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Imran Khan had a close relationship when both were students in Oxford. He wrote that Bhutto at the age of 21 first became close to Khan in 1975. They remained in a relationship for about two months. His mother also tried to have an arranged marriage between them. He further claimed that they had a "romantic relationship", which was refuted by Khan who said they were only friends.
His most well known relationship was with heiress Sita White, daughter of British industrialist Gordon White, Baron White of Hull. They remained in the relationship for about six years having met in 1987–88. According to Sita White, Khan agreed for a child in a 1991 meeting. Tyrian Jade was born on 15 June 1992 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center but Khan, according to White's allegation, refused to accept her because she was a girl. Khan had urged White to go for an abortion Tyrian looked extraordinarily like Khan. Later in 1997, Los Angeles court announced the verdict which was put by his former partner Sita White and her lawyer Gloria Allred that Imran Khan is the father of a five-year-old girl named Tyrian-Jade White. His former wife Reham Khan alleged Khan told her that Tyrian was not the only child fathered by him out of wedlock, there were four others, some of them had Indian mothers and the oldest of his children is 34 years old. In a later interview, Reham conceded that she did not know where these children were, who they were and whether Khan was only boasting about it, and said that she "didn't even know if it is true also because you can never make out whether he tells the truth."In 2004, after Sita's death, Khan agreed to accept Tyrian as his child and welcomed her to join their house.
On 16 May 1995, at the age of 43, Khan married 21-year-old Jemima Goldsmith, in a two-minute ceremony conducted in Urdu in Paris. A month later, on 21 June, they were married again in a civil ceremony at the Richmond registry office in England. Jemima converted to Islam. The couple have two sons, Sulaiman Isa and Kasim. On 22 June 2004, it was announced that the couple had divorced, ending the nine-year marriage because it was "difficult for Jemima to adapt to life in Pakistan".
In January 2015, it was announced that Khan married British-Pakistani journalist Reham Khan in a private Nikah ceremony at his residence in Islamabad. However, Reham Khan later states in her autobiography that they in fact got married in October 2014 but the announcement only came in January the year after. On 22 October, they announced their intention to file for divorce.
In mid-2016, late 2017 and early 2018, reports emerged that Khan had married his spiritual mentor (murshid), Bushra Bibi. Khan, PTI aides and members of the Manika family denied the rumour. Khan termed the media "unethical" for spreading the rumour, and PTI filed a complaint against the news channels that had aired it. On 7 January 2018, however, the PTI central secretariat issued a statement that said Khan had proposed to Manika, but she had not yet accepted his proposal. On 18 February 2018, PTI confirmed Khan has married Manika. According to Khan, his life has been influenced by Sufism for three decades, and this is what drew him closer to his wife.
Khan resides in his sprawling farmhouse at Bani Gala. In November 2009, Khan underwent emergency surgery at Lahore's Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital to remove an obstruction in his small intestine.
He owns five pet dogs, who reside on his estate.