by Anura Guruge
on January 30, 2024

Wow. I knew he had been arrested etc., BUT had not heard/read that he had been in prison since October of last year. Wow. Heard about the new 10-year sentence, on ‘BBC News‘, this morning. I was shocked. Maybe even shaken.

Imran the cricketing legend. Imran the superstar. Imran the incomparable lady’s man — & even us males have to admit that he really was devastatingly handsome. [He is 11-months my senior.]

I have seen him in person a few times when we were both in England at the same time. Once, famously, I saw him in the car park of the Hampshire Cricket Club, Southampton Grounds, canoodling with a young lady. I did say “Hi, Imran” as I walked past. It would have been rude not to acknowledge him.

Beyond that fleeting encounter, I have two other ‘connections’ with Imran.

1/ The title of my first, and financially my most successful book, “SNA: Theory and Practice“, in 1984, was conjured by a rather brilliant young lady who was an ex-girlfriend of Imran’s during his time in Oxford. She was in charge of marketing for the publisher. I did not have a title for the book. But I explained to her what it was about and how I structured the book to first explain the architecture and then how the architecture was implemented. I was thinking along the lines of “SNA: Architecture and Implementation”. She came up with the much better title. Given that she knew that I was a cricket fanatic she would remind me, every time we met, that she knew Imran in the Biblical sense. Wish I could remember her name. So that is the first connection.

2/ Imran, in his 1988 autobiography, “All Round View“, shed light to me as to why he and I are both accused (often) of being arrogant — though he, obviously, has better reasons to be so, than I. In that book he EXPLAINS how his parents had brought him up to be arrogant. It was an Eureka moment. My (adoptive) parents too had brought ME up to be arrogant. It was a part of how we were brought up. Cultural. We, the first generation of post-independence kids to aspiring upper middle class families, were expected to be arrogant. It all became clear. Now I understood.

So, Imran is not just a name. I feel a connection with him. I feel bad for him — as a person, a cricketer. I REALLY HAVE NO idea what he got up to as a politician. I do know he is very clever. Much cleverer than I.

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