Imran Ahmad Khan Niazi HI PP (Urdu: عمران احمد خان نیازی; born 5 October 1952)[7] is a Pakistani politician and former cricketer who is the 22nd[nb 1] and current Prime Minister of Pakistan. He is also the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. Previously he was a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan from 2002 to 2007, and again from 2013 to 2018. Prior to entering politics, Khan was a cricketer and philanthropist. He played international cricket for two decades, and later developed philanthropic projects such as the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre and Namal College.[13][14]
Khan was born to an upper-middle class Pashtun family in Lahore, Punjab, in 1952; he was educated at Aitchison College in Lahore, then the Royal Grammar School Worcester in Worcester, England, and later at Keble College, Oxford. He started playing cricket at the age of 13. Initially playing for his college and later for Worcestershire, Khan made his debut for the Pakistan national cricket team at the age of 18, during the 1971 series against England at Edgbaston, Birmingham. 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.[15] Notably, he led Pakistan to victory at the 1992 Cricket World Cup, Pakistan's first and only victory in that competition.[16]
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.[17] 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 a hospital in Lahore in 1994, and later in 2015 a second hospital in Peshawar.[18] Khan remains a prominent philanthropist and commentator, 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.[19][20]
In April 1996, Khan founded the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (lit: Pakistan Movement for Justice), a centrist political party, and became the party's national leader.[21] 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.[22][23] 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.[24] 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.[
