They're sure I'm hatching some kind of plot he laughs

They're sure I'm hatching some kind of plot," he laughs."If my objective were power, I'd jump into it now But I don't want votes. The biggest change, however, is that Imran has been slung - against his will, he insists - into the deadly arena of Pakistani politics. He is leading a mini-jihad against the ruling political class, whom he accuses of pushing Pakistan to the brink of anarchy. It is a far more dangerous game than cricket.Although Imran insists he doesn't want power, neither Bhutto nor Sharif believe him. Now, his reputation as a favourite pin-up of British women embarrasses him painfully. Since leaving cricket, he has become more pronouncedly Islamic in his views. In Pakistan, he prefers baggy salwar khameez trousers to his wardrobe full of designer clothes.

His biggest test of character may be still to come.While many sportsmen, after retiring, slide ungracefully into a limbo of television game show appearances and opening shopping centres, Imran has shed his past image of a Casanova socialite, a Playboy of the Eastern World who bowled over as many beautiful women - models, artists and aristocrats - as he did wickets. Zakir Khan, a friend and former team-mate, says, "If Imran thinks he's fit, he can take on anything." Yet, at 42, Imran's handsome, warrior face is curiously unlined, as though destiny is still waiting to etch itself furiously on to his Pathan features. Just because I've built a hospital and led Pakistan to a World Cup win, they think I'm the one. I've delivered," he says as we drive the 12 miles from his hospital into Lahore.

It is drizzling, and labourers in the muddy fields stop to salute Imran's Toyota landcruiser. "It shows how desperate people are with the current political leaders that they'd even think of me." While raising funds for his Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital -named after his mother, who died of cancer in 1985 ("she could have been saved if we'd diagnosed it earlier") - Imran is mobbed by hysterical crowds shouting, "Imran Khan! Prime Minister!"Imran gave up playing cricket after leading his Pakistan side to a World Cup victory in 1992, but he is still lean and sinewy from a daily regime of sprints, long distance running, and lifting weights for 45 minutes. Yet he is unquestionably the most popular person in Pakistan today, trusted far more than either the prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, or the opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif.This predicament baffles Imran more than anyone "Right now, Pakistanis are looking for a saviour. As religious terrorism grows, some worried diplomats in Islamabad say that Pakistan may be careening down the same road as fundamentalist Iran and Algeria.Imran Khan may have been a remarkable all-rounder on the cricket field, but that hardly qualifies him to be the nation's rescuer.

Its biggest city, Karachi, is a war zone in which more than 300 people were killed this year as rival ethnic gangs battled for supremacy; tribal chieftains from the Khyber Pass have corrupted the main political parties with their colossal heroin profits; and a dangerous inequality exists between the few very rich families who rule and the vast majority of 120 million Pakistanis who are poor, illiterate and have little to sustain them other than Islam which, day by day, burns in the country with greater intolerance and revolutionary fervour. People have come to expect almost, well, miracles from Imran."In Pakistan, many people look upon Imran Khan as a miracle-worker, as the one honest man capable of saving the country before it shatters to pieces. Dr Nosherwan Burki, the hospital director, said, "This happens quite a lot. Maybe it is only you who can save him now, Imran-sahib."Imran winced as if a West Indian pace bowler had slammed a ball into his ribs "There isn't anything I can do. I'd be happy to look in on your son, but I can't cure him," he said, clasping the disconsolate woman's hands. Then, taking long, scissored strides, Imran moved on alone through the ward, as if trying to shake off the woman's impossible expectations of him.

By the time the mother and son had reached Imran Khan's free hospital, the money was gone, the disease raged unconquerable, and the boy had only days or even hours left of life. "Please, sahib Quickly. Come! My son is dying," said the mother, who looked wrung out of tears. Two nurses gently restrained her from falling at Imran Khan's feet in supplication."We have doctors, good doctors..." began Imran, helplessly."No, my son is past that. She was tiny beside the six-foot-two cricketer, a poor village woman in a dirty orange shawl who was nearing the end of a terrible odyssey: her son was dying of cancer. All of the family's savings had gone on quack medicines, phials filled with nothing but bright, coloured water, and on bribes so that a doctor would tend to her son among the many patients collapsed in the corridors of the Lahore state hospital, dying for want of treatment. And, at the end, when the dust has settled, no trace of the carpets remains..