Daily Times

Legendary cricketer Imran Khan was left out of a video highlighting the national team’s historic triumphs since its founding in 1952, according to Pakistani legend Wasim Akram, who expressed his outrage on Wednesday.

For the past 48 hours, the board has come under fire as people have urged the PCB to remove the video because it omitted one of the greatest moments in history.

“After long flights and hours of transit before reaching Sri Lanka, I got the shock of my life when I watched PCB’s short clip on the history of Pakistan cricket minus the great Imran Khan,” Akram wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

The cricketer noted that despite political differences, one cannot disregard Khan’s contribution to cricket and demanded that the body retract the video and issue an apology.

“…political differences apart but Imran Khan is an icon of world cricket and developed Pakistan into a strong unit in his time and gave us a pathway… PCB should delete the video and apologise,” he added.

Khan is regarded as one of Pakistan’s greatest captains, having led the country to its only World Cup victory in 1992. He has also coached cricket legends such as Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, and Moin Khan.

The cricketer-turned-politician is currently imprisoned on corruption charges after a court convicted him in the Toshakhana case, sentencing him to three years in prison, and the election commission later barred him from running for office for five years.

Khan represented Pakistan in 88 Tests and 175 One-Day Internationals during his illustrious cricket career.

His averages of 37 with the bat and 22 with the ball kept him at the top of a quartet of star all-rounders in the 1980s, which also included Ian Botham, Richard Hadlee, and Kapil Dev.