The PCB told Sky its players would not come out after lunch, and the interview aired anyway
Mike Atherton’s interview with Imran Khan’s two sons went out during the lunch break on day one at Lord’s. The Pakistan Cricket Board had warned Sky it would keep its side off the field, and has since lodged a formal complaint.
Aug 28, 2026
Sky Sports aired an 18-minute interview with Imran Khan’s two sons during the lunch interval on the opening day of the Lord’s Test, and it went out after the Pakistan Cricket Board had told the broadcaster its players would not come back out if it did.
The complaint came before the interval, not after
Mike Atherton, the former England captain who now works for Sky, sat down with Sulaiman and Kasim Khan in the Writers’ Room at Lord’s on Wednesday, 26 August. Sky trailed the segment in its build-up to the second Test, so nobody on either side was surprised by what was coming.
According to Cricinfo, the PCB got in touch with Sky ahead of Thursday’s lunch break and said its players would not return for the afternoon session if the interview was broadcast. Sky held the clip back while those conversations went on, then ran it. By the time the 18 minutes had finished, Pakistan’s players were getting ready to walk out for the second session at 2.40pm local time, and the Test carried on without a delay.
The board has since lodged a formal complaint with Sky. Cricinfo reported it also wanted to take the matter to the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Sky has acknowledged the complaint and said nothing beyond that. PTV, which is carrying the series in Pakistan, did not show the interview at all.
What Khan’s sons said
Sulaiman and Kasim, who are 29 and 27, spoke about their father’s health rather than about cricket. Khan is 73 and has been in prison since August 2023. Both said they feared for his life. They described his eyesight as badly damaged, said he had been wearing an eye patch when they last saw him, and put getting him proper treatment ahead of everything else.
Neither brother plays cricket or holds any position in the game. What the PCB objected to was where the interview ran rather than that it existed: eighteen minutes on Pakistani domestic politics, dropped into the lunch slot that normally carries highlights and a bit of pitch analysis, on a feed going out to a global audience under the Test’s own branding.
The captains’ letter that Atherton had already signed
Atherton was not a neutral interviewer here, and Sky did not pretend otherwise. Three days before he sat down with them he had put his name to a letter from 21 former international captains to Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, asking that Khan be given an independent medical assessment by the board the Supreme Court had directed, that his court-restored weekly family visits be honoured, and that the recommended treatment go ahead without further delay. Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Adam Gilchrist, Allan Border, Clive Lloyd, Arjuna Ranatunga, Alastair Cook and Nasser Hussain were among the other names on it.
It was the second such letter in six months. An earlier one, sent in February, got no response from the Pakistan government. Not one former Pakistan cricketer signed either of them, though several have raised concerns about Khan’s health in public.
The immediate trigger was what happened last week. Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered that Khan be admitted to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad. He was taken instead to PIMS, the state-run hospital in the same city, and was back in prison shortly after a check-up. His sisters and sons say that breached the court’s order and have asked for him to see his own doctor.
The Pakistan government has rejected the allegations. In a statement to the Associated Press last week it said Khan had received more than 900 visits from family, lawyers and doctors since his imprisonment.
The Test itself
The cricket, on a day dominated by everything around it, belonged to Pakistan’s seamers. Babar Azam came back into the side after missing the first Test with a finger injury, taking the captaincy back from Salman Ali Agha, who was the only man to make way. Pakistan won the toss and bowled. England were 248 for 9 when bad light ended the day, with Mohammad Abbas and Mohammad Ali breaking the middle order and Jordan Cox and Jamie Smith making fifties.
England lead the series 1-0.