Claim: Sky Sports apologised to the Pakistan Cricket Board for airing Imran Khan sons’ interview during the test match at Lords.
Fact: No official apology has been made by Sky Sports to the PCB.
On 29 August 2026 several social media users, including an X profile called Zard si Gana posted a clip of a Sky Sports broadcast about the Pakistani government’s response to Sulaiman and Kasim Khan’s recent interview with the channel. The post is accompanied by the following caption:
“Sky Sports apologizes to PCB for broadcasting politics in cricket! Sky Sports apologized and broadcast Pakistan’s official position on the allegations made by convicted former PM’s sons. The UK Government also respected Pakistan’s position. Not good news for Imran Khan’s sons.”
Screenshot of the X post.
Imran Khan’s sons interview with Sky Sports
On 27 August 2026, Sky Sports aired an 18-minute clip of Sulaiman Khan and Kasim Khan during the lunch interval of Pakistan and England’s test match at Lords Cricket Ground. The brothers told broadcaster Michael Atherton that they had not spoken to their father since March, and that until the week before, Imran Khan’s family had not met him for 10 months. They also raised concerns about the former prime minister’s physical and mental health, claiming that they are trying to “kill him in there”.
According to the Guardian, “Khan has been in solitary confinement for three years. Lawyers have described his living conditions as slow-motion murder, his sister claimed he has been tortured and 21 former cricketers including Atherton have campaigned for him to be treated humanely.”
In their interview, Sulaiman and Kasim Khan also discussed how Khan was taken to a government hospital instead of Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad, as was ordered by the Supreme Court on 18 August 2026.
According to the BBC, “during lunch on day one of the second Test, Sky Sports aired an interview with Suleiman and Kasim Khan… It is understood the PCB raised the prospect of cancelling the Test at Lord’s and the remainder of the three-match tour if the interview aired. A version of the interview was broadcast, and the players returned to the field after the interval to continue the match.”
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has lodged a formal complaint to Sky Sports.
It is understood that PCB might want to raise a complaint with the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office as well, but there has been no confirmation as yet.
On 29 August 2026, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting posted on X, rejecting all allegations made by Kasim and Sulaiman Khan.
Fact or Fiction?
Notably, the video itself makes no claims that Sky News apologised to the PCB, that claim originates from the social media captions accompanying it.
Soch Fact Check first combed through Sky Sports official channels, including their website and social media platforms @SkySportsNews and @SkyCricket. No apology to the PCB was found.
We also checked the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) website, as Sky Sports is the core broadcast partner for the board, and found no mention of an apology.
Keyword searches of the words ‘apology’ and ‘Sky Sports’ also did not lead to any relevant results.
Soch Fact Check can confirm that the video accompanying the claim is a genuine Sky Sports broadcast, as confirmed by viewers who saw it aired. However, the broadcast only reported on the Pakistan government’s rejection of the Khan brother’s allegations as well as the statement from an Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office spokesperson who said, in part, ““Pakistan’s judicial processes are a domestic matter in which the UK does not interfere.”
No apology was made by Sky or any UK government-affiliated bodies.
Virality
The claim went viral on Facebook, Instagram and X, with one X post getting 100K views within the first day of being posted.
Conclusion: Sky Sports did not apologise to the PCB for airing an interview with Imran Khan’s sons during a test match. It did air a response to the interview by the Pakistani government and a statement by the UK government, but no apology was made by any affiliated UK bodies.
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