Decoding Imran Khan: From flamboyant cricketer to hardline politician 

When a tough-faced Imran Khan faced England's Graham Gooch during the toss ofthe 1992 Cricket World Cup final match, little did the world know that the man who was to captain his team to win the World Cup title, will also become the nucleus of his country's politics some decades down the line.

But his ouster from power and subsequent troubles with law, especially in the Toshakhana case, have kept him in and out of news, all the while retaininghis position in the South Asian nation's internal political calculus.

On Saturday (August 5), a district and sessions court found Imran Khan guilty in the Toshakhana case and handed him a 3-year jail sentence.The court also imposed a fine of 100,000 Pakistani rupees on the former prime minister. The conviction and the verdict bar Khan from politics for five years until he gets relief from a higher court.

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Known for his flamboyance during his cricketing days, PTI chief Imran Khan built his political career on his image of an ultra-conservative leader and an outsider. From the cricket field to the political arena, Imran has played his way up the ladder but with starkly diverging outcomes.

Khan has often been touted as a man who may well reshape the political scene in Pakistan but interestingly, he was hardly taken seriously when he began his political innings.

He won accolades after the Pakistani cricket team won the 1992 cricket world cup under his captaincy. Off the field, Khan's flamboyant lifestyle made headlines weaving tales of his high-profile romances during the 90s.

Rocky road to political arena

Imran Khan has seen his share of ups and downs in the political arena. He founded the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in 1996. His first spell as a politician was a disaster.

Khan ran from two constituencies in Lahore in the 1997 election and lost both seats to PML-N candidates.

It took him a considerable amount of time to find his footing in the political battleground.

The next decade was even turbulent for him.

He was put under house arrest by President Pervez Musharraf in 2007. Khan had vocally opposed Musharraf's decision to impose emergency the same year.

He boycotted the 2008 general election, claiming that they were fraudulent and irregular.

Surging popularity, declininghold on power

The year 2011 saw a surge in Imran Khan's popularity. His party gained ground after several politicians left their parties to flock to the PTI.

For the 2018 election, Khan had made most of the political vacuum after the departure of Nawaz Sharif.

After the Sharifs were convicted in the Panama Papers case, Khan emerged as a frontrunner for prime ministership.

Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf came to power in July 2018 by claiming 110 of 269 seats in the Pakistan National Assembly, in an election that saw accusations of viter fraud by outgoing Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and opposition People's Party of Punjab.

Khan was ousted from power in April 2022 after losing a no-confidence vote in his leadership. He talked about a ‘threat letter’ from the US and claimed that it was part of a foreign conspiracy to remove him as he was not acceptable for following an independent foreign policy. The USbluntly rejected the allegations.

Since April 2022, Khan has been galvanising his party cadre across Pakistan, preparing for general elections by leading various marches.

The marriages

Khan's first marriage to British socialite Jemima Goldsmith in 1995 became global news. They had two sons in their nine years of marriage. The couple separated in 2004 but remained on good terms.

The second marriage was with Reham Khan, a British-Pakistani journalist. The union ended in nine months after much public mudslinging.

Since 2018, Khan is married to his spiritual adviser Bushra Maneka.Their wedding photographs had shown Maneka clad in an ultra-conservative veil.

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