Peshawar’s Cricket Stadium Gets a New Name: The Imran Khan Stadium Decision, the Objections and the Court Case
In February 2025 the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government renamed Peshawar's Arbab Niaz Stadium after Imran Khan. The family of the man it was named for objected, a court was asked to rule, and the ground itself has slowly come back to life. This plain-English guide explains the whole story up to 2026.
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⚡ The short answer
In February 2025 the cabinet of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the province governed by Imran Khan’s party, voted to rename Peshawar’s main cricket ground, the Arbab Niaz Stadium, as the Imran Khan Cricket Stadium. The family of Arbab Niaz, a former minister after whom it had been named for decades, protested. Critics pointed out that Mr Khan’s own provincial government had decided in 2013 that nothing should be named after a living person. A signboard went up, a petition went to the Peshawar High Court, and the matter was still before the judges in 2026. Meanwhile the ground, closed for rebuilding for years, has reopened and been cleared to host top-level cricket again.
- ✅ Decided: February 2025, by the provincial cabinet
- ✅ New name: Imran Khan Cricket Stadium, Shahi Bagh
- ⚠️ Objections: from the Arbab family, and on the principle of not naming things after the living
- ⚠️ Court: petition pending in the Peshawar High Court when last reported
What was decided
The sequence, as reported, was short.
- The provincial sports department prepared a formal proposal, known as a summary, to rename the stadium.
- The chief minister, Ali Amin Gandapur, signed it.
- The provincial cabinet approved it the next day, in the third week of February 2025.
- The new name was to be Imran Khan Cricket Stadium, Shahi Bagh, the last two words being the name of the old Mughal garden in which the ground stands.
The government’s reasoning was simple. Imran Khan is the most famous cricketer Pakistan has produced and the founder of the party that has governed the province since 2013. The province’s premier cricket ground, it said, should carry his name.
Naming a stadium is the cheapest gesture a government can make and one of the hardest to undo. Whoever takes the name down next will be accused of insulting the man it honoured.
Who was Arbab Niaz?
Arbab Niaz Muhammad Khan belonged to one of Peshawar’s old landed families, the Arbabs. He served as a federal minister and is described by his family as the man behind the stadium, built at a time when Peshawar had no ground fit for international cricket. The ground was named in his memory after his death.
Accounts differ on one detail. One says the ground opened in 1984 as the Shahi Bagh stadium and was renamed in his memory in 1987. Another says it carried his name from the start. Either way, it had been the Arbab Niaz Stadium for nearly forty years.
The objections
From the family
His family rejected the decision at once and said it would go to court. One of his sons made two points to reporters.
- The name had not been a favour from any government. It was given by a formal resolution of the city’s municipal body after his father’s death, in recognition of his work.
- In 2013, when Imran Khan’s party first took power in the province, its cabinet had decided that no public facility should be named after a living person.
From political opponents
Rival parties called the renaming an act of flattery by a chief minister anxious to show loyalty to a jailed leader. They asked why, if the government wished to honour Mr Khan, it did not build something new.
From within
The most awkward objection was reported to come from Mr Khan himself. According to press accounts in the spring of 2025, he sent word from prison that he did not want the stadium renamed after him and that the decision should be reversed. A new signboard nonetheless went up in April. Whether the official record of the name was ever changed is unclear.
| Argument for the new name | Argument against |
|---|---|
| He is the country’s greatest cricketer and its only World Cup-winning captain | The ground already honoured a man who helped build it |
| The province’s elected government is entitled to name its own property | The same party had ruled against naming things after the living |
| Stadiums around the world are named after sporting heroes | It was done for politics, not sport |
| The old name can be kept for a stand or an enclosure | He himself is reported to have objected |
The court case
In March 2026 a petition against the renaming came before the Peshawar High Court. The court issued notice to the provincial government and asked for its reply.
Three points from the reported hearing are worth noting.
- The petitioner argued that public property may not be named after a living individual.
- The judge observed that there were already rulings on the question, from the Peshawar High Court itself and from the Balochistan High Court.
- The court suggested that the government could give Mr Khan’s name to a newly built stadium instead.
The case was to be heard again after the government filed its report. No final decision had been found when this article was written.
💡 Tip: can a public building be named after a living person?
No Act of Parliament forbids it across Pakistan. The restraint comes from three other places. Government policy: several provincial cabinets have, at various times, adopted rules against it. Court rulings: high courts have held that public assets are held in trust for the people and should not be used to glorify those in office. Convention: in most countries honours of this kind are given after death, when a person’s record is complete. In practice Pakistani governments of every party have broken the convention when it suited them.
Names and politics in Pakistan
The Peshawar decision was not unusual. Naming is one of the ways Pakistani governments mark their territory, and un-naming is one of the first things their successors do.
| Place or scheme | What happened |
|---|---|
| Lahore’s cricket stadium | Named in 1974 after Libya’s leader, who was alive and visiting; the name survived his fall and death |
| Karachi’s National Stadium | Now carries a bank’s name under a sponsorship deal |
| Islamabad’s old airport | Named after Benazir Bhutto after her assassination |
| The district of Nawabshah, Sindh | Renamed Shaheed Benazirabad |
| The national cash-transfer programme | Named after Benazir Bhutto; rebranded under Imran Khan’s government; the original name restored after 2022 |
| Hospitals, roads and universities in every province | Named and renamed with each change of government |
Two patterns stand out. Names given after a death tend to last. Names given by a government to its own living leader tend to become a target the day that government falls.
The stadium itself
Its first life
The ground opened in 1984 on the edge of the old city. It staged its first one-day international that year and its first Test match in 1995.
It was never one of the grand stadiums. It was small and close, and famous for the noise of its crowd. Several of Pakistan’s best fast bowlers came from the surrounding region and learned their trade on its pitch.
Its last international match was in 2006. After that the security situation in Peshawar made it impossible to bring foreign teams to the city.
The long rebuild
In 2018 the provincial government began to demolish and rebuild the stadium to international standard. It was meant to take about two years.
It took seven. The work stopped and started, the design changed, the cost rose several times over, and deadlines for hosting matches of the Pakistan Super League were missed year after year. In 2020 the ground was judged unfit even to be considered.
For a province governed by a party whose founder was a cricketer, the half-built stadium became an embarrassment that its opponents never tired of mentioning.
Its return
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| August 2025 | An exhibition match between the city’s league franchise and a team of former stars, to raise money for flood victims; the first cricket on the ground in years |
| August 2025 | The league’s chief executive says further changes are needed before it can host league matches |
| November 2025 | Officials and a franchise owner inspect the ground and call it fit for league and international cricket |
| February 2026 | Floodlights are installed, allowing night matches for the first time |
| 10 February 2026 | A security meeting is reported to have cleared Peshawar to host matches of the league’s eleventh season |
Whether league matches were in the end played in Peshawar in the spring of 2026 could not be confirmed for this article. Reports conflict.
⚠️ Two different stories are tangled together
The return of cricket to Peshawar after nearly twenty years is good news that almost everyone in the city welcomes. The argument about what to call the stadium is a political quarrel. The second has tended to drown out the first. A reader can be glad of one and sceptical of the other.
Why Peshawar went without cricket for so long
Younger readers may not realise how complete the absence was.
2009. Gunmen attacked the Sri Lankan team’s bus in Lahore. Several policemen and civilians were killed and a number of players were wounded. No foreign team would tour Pakistan after that. For six years the national side played its “home” matches in the United Arab Emirates.
2015 onwards. International cricket returned step by step: first Zimbabwe, then a World XI, then Sri Lanka, and finally, from 2019, full tours by the major sides. Each visit was confined to a handful of grounds that could be sealed off: Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi and Multan.
Peshawar was left out. The city was at the centre of the militant violence of those years. It suffered some of the worst attacks in the country’s history, including the massacre at a school in 2014. No visiting team’s security advisers would approve it, and for much of the period the stadium was a building site in any case.
The city’s own franchise in the national league, one of the best supported in the competition, has therefore played every one of its “home” matches somewhere else since the league began in 2016. A generation of Peshawar’s children have grown up cheering for a team they have never seen play in their own city.
That is why the exhibition match of August 2025 drew such a crowd, and why the installation of floodlights and the security clearance of early 2026 were treated as major news in the province. The name on the gate matters much less to most people than the fact that the gate is open.
Who owns a stadium, and who names it?
The legal position explains why the provincial government could act as it did, and why its critics went to court instead of to the cricket board.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Who owns the ground? | The provincial government, through its sports department |
| Who runs cricket there? | The Pakistan Cricket Board, which approves venues and schedules matches |
| Who paid for the rebuilding? | The province, from its development budget |
| Who chooses the name? | The owner, which is the province |
| Can the cricket board refuse a name? | It has no formal say, though it sells naming rights at grounds it controls |
| Who can overturn the decision? | The provincial cabinet itself, or a court |
The original name was given by the city’s municipal body in the 1980s. Since then, control of the ground has passed to the province. Whether a provincial cabinet can set aside an old municipal resolution, and whether it can do so in favour of a living person, are among the questions the High Court was asked to answer.
There is also a practical point. In official fixtures and broadcasts, grounds are called whatever their owners tell the cricket board to call them. If the province files the new name, that is what will appear on the scorecards, whatever the people in the stands go on saying.
Imran Khan and cricket
For younger readers, a reminder of why his name is attached to cricket at all.
| Born | 1952, Lahore |
| Played for Pakistan | 1971 to 1992 |
| Role | Fast bowler and batsman; one of the great all-rounders |
| Test wickets | 362 |
| Test runs | More than 3,800 |
| Captain | For most of the 1980s |
| Greatest moment | Leading Pakistan to its only 50-over World Cup, in 1992 |
| Afterwards | Built a cancer hospital; founded a political party in 1996; prime minister 2018 to 2022 |
His family comes from Mianwali in Punjab and he grew up in Lahore, not Peshawar. His link to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is political: his party has won every provincial election there since 2013, and he is of Pashtun descent.
He has been in prison since August 2023 on convictions he is appealing and describes as politically motivated.
What the episode shows
About the provincial government. In February 2025 the chief minister was under pressure from within his own party to prove his loyalty to its imprisoned founder. A gesture that cost nothing was attractive. Eight months later he was replaced on Mr Khan’s instructions regardless.
About precedent. The party’s 2013 rule against naming things after the living was a good one, adopted to distinguish itself from rivals who had named airports, hospitals and bridges after their leaders. Breaking it handed those rivals an easy point.
About families and memory. Peshawar’s old families take such things seriously. A name on a public building is part of a family’s standing in the city. Removing it without consultation was felt as a slight.
About what matters. The people of Peshawar waited nineteen years for cricket to come home. What most of them wanted from the stadium was not a name but a match.
What could happen next
| Possible outcome | What it would mean |
|---|---|
| The court strikes down the renaming | The old name returns; the government may appeal |
| The government withdraws it | Consistent with Mr Khan’s reported wishes |
| A compromise | The new name for the ground, the old one for a main stand or gate |
| Nothing | The signboard stays; the argument resumes whenever the province changes hands |
✅ Key point
The renaming of Peshawar’s stadium was a small decision that touched several large nerves: loyalty to a jailed leader, a party’s own broken rule, an old family’s pride and a city’s long wait for cricket. The courts may yet decide the name. The crowd will decide what it is actually called, and crowds are slow to give up a name they grew up with.
Words used in this article
| Term | Plain meaning |
|---|---|
| Summary | A formal written proposal put to a chief minister or cabinet |
| Provincial cabinet | The chief minister and his ministers |
| Notice | A court’s order to a party to appear and reply |
| Petition | A written request to a court |
| Test match | The longest form of international cricket, played over five days |
| One-day international | A 50-over match between national teams |
| Pakistan Super League | The country’s Twenty20 franchise competition |
| Franchise | A city-based team in that league |
| All-rounder | A player who both bats and bowls well |
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1984 | The stadium opens |
| 1995 | First Test match |
| 2006 | Last international match |
| 2013 | Imran Khan’s party takes office in the province; its cabinet decides against naming facilities after living people |
| 2018 | Demolition and rebuilding begin |
| February 2025 | The cabinet approves the new name |
| April 2025 | A new signboard is installed |
| August 2025 | First match on the rebuilt ground |
| October 2025 | The chief minister who made the decision is replaced |
| February 2026 | Floodlights installed; the city is cleared to host league cricket |
| March 2026 | The Peshawar High Court issues notice on a petition against the renaming |
For how provincial governments are formed and what they control, read our guide to Pakistan’s politics.
Understand how provinces are governed
PoliticsPK explains who is who, how the system works and what changes, without the noise.
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Frequently asked questions
❓ What is the new name of Peshawar’s cricket stadium?
The provincial cabinet approved the name Imran Khan Cricket Stadium, Shahi Bagh, in February 2025. It was previously the Arbab Niaz Stadium.
❓ Who decided to rename it?
The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The chief minister signed a proposal from the sports department and the cabinet approved it.
❓ Who was Arbab Niaz?
Arbab Niaz Muhammad Khan, a former federal minister from a prominent Peshawar family, who is credited with getting the stadium built in the 1980s.
❓ Why was the renaming controversial?
His family objected; opponents called it political flattery; and the same party’s provincial cabinet had decided in 2013 not to name public facilities after living people.
❓ Has a court ruled on it?
The Peshawar High Court issued notice to the provincial government in March 2026. No final ruling was found when this article was written.
❓ Did Imran Khan want the stadium named after him?
Press reports in 2025 said he had asked for the decision to be reversed. That could not be independently confirmed.
❓ Is the stadium open?
Yes. After being closed for rebuilding since 2018, it hosted an exhibition match in August 2025 and had floodlights installed in February 2026.
❓ Has it hosted Pakistan Super League matches?
It was reported in February 2026 to have been cleared as a venue for the 2026 season. Whether matches were played there could not be confirmed.
❓ When did Peshawar last host international cricket?
In 2006, before the rebuilding.
Sources
- Dawn, “KP govt to name Peshawar’s cricket stadium after Imran” — February 2025.
- The Express Tribune, “Arbab Niaz Stadium to be renamed after Imran Khan” — February 2025.
- Associated Press of Pakistan, “Arbab family rejects KP Govt decision to change name of Niaz Cricket Stadium” — February 2025.
- Cricket Pakistan, “Peshawar’s historic Arbab Niaz Stadium renamed despite objections” — 2025.
- The News, “PHC puts KP govt on notice for renaming stadium” — March 2026.
- Associated Press of Pakistan, “PHC seeks report on renaming of Arbab Niaz Stadium after Imran Khan” — 2026.
- Geo Super, “Peshawar cleared to host PSL 11 matches by high-profile security huddle” — 10 February 2026.
- Wikipedia, “Imran Khan Cricket Stadium” — not opened in full; listed for readers.
