He’ll look the part but don’t expect a new

Imran Khan, former cricket star and playboy, is tipped to become Pakistan’s next prime minister.

He has pledged to banish corruption and build a “new Pakistan”.

That would make for a heroic tale: the ruggedly handsome captain of the Pakistan cricket team that won the 1992 World Cup, who bowled as many maidens over in London nightclubs as he did maiden overs at Lord’s, embraces piety, battles his country’s demons and prevails.

Alas, the election comes amid growing fears that nuclear-armed Pakistan is facing renewed political volatility and a massive debt crisis.

The polls have been overshadowed by terrorist attacks and political arrests. Pakistani media has been gagged; militant groups permitted unprecedented electoral participation; and the country is increasingly in hock to China, which is financing infrastructure projects.

Khan himself has been accused of enjoying the covert support of Pakistan’s powerful military, which has ruled it directly or indirectly for most of the last 70 years.

It would be a historic win and mark the end of a long, winding road to power. Khan, 65, would break the stranglehold of Pakistan’s tarnished “status quo” political parties in what would only be its second democratic transition. Campaigning on a populist, anti-corruption ticket, his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), or Pakistan Justice Movement, seeks an end to decades of what it calls the Sharif and Bhutto families’ misrule.

In some ways, Khan personifies the crippling contradictions and quest for identity that have hampered Pakistan since its creation in 1947.

In the 1990s, he had ostensibly turned his back on Western “decadence” and the ruling class he came from, instead campaigning for the “masses” and national Islamic pride. But he has become a wildly popular figure among ordinary Pakistanis, setting up cancer hospitals that treat the poor and wading into