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Leadership Quote by Imran Khan

"During my 21 years of playing cricket, I have never been approached by anyone or offered a bribe"

About this Quote

It lands like a clean defensive shot: simple, straight, and daring you to challenge it. Imran Khan’s line isn’t really about cricket; it’s about credibility. By anchoring his claim in “21 years,” he borrows the authority of a long public career and turns personal experience into evidence. The phrasing is careful, almost legalistic: “never been approached,” “offered a bribe.” He’s not promising the sport was pure, only that he was. The subtext is self-curation: integrity framed as something so routine it barely deserves drama.

The context matters because cricket in South Asia is never just a game. It’s money, patronage, nationalist pride, and—by the late 20th century—mounting whispers of match-fixing and backroom deals. In that environment, claiming total insulation from corruption is both a defense and an indictment. It implies that bribery is plausible enough to require denial, and that others may not be able to say the same with a straight face.

As a politician, Khan retrofits his athletic myth into a governing argument: if I couldn’t be bought then, I won’t be bought now. It’s also a subtle rebuke to Pakistan’s entrenched power networks, where “approach” and “offer” are often euphemisms for how business gets done. The sentence’s power is its austerity: no anecdotes, no outrage, just a flat declaration designed to sound like fact rather than spin. Of course, that’s also the risk—an absolute claim invites scrutiny, because it asks the public to treat character as proof.

Quote Details

TopicHonesty & Integrity
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Khan, Imran. (2026, January 16). During my 21 years of playing cricket, I have never been approached by anyone or offered a bribe. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/during-my-21-years-of-playing-cricket-i-have-135110/

Chicago Style
Khan, Imran. "During my 21 years of playing cricket, I have never been approached by anyone or offered a bribe." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/during-my-21-years-of-playing-cricket-i-have-135110/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"During my 21 years of playing cricket, I have never been approached by anyone or offered a bribe." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/during-my-21-years-of-playing-cricket-i-have-135110/. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

Imran Khan

Imran Khan (born November 25, 1952) is a Politician from Pakistan.

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