Southwest Freeway crash leaves 1 dead, snarls traffic

Semi was stopped when car going ‘highway speeds’ hit; traffic snarled

The host of a cricket-themed talk show was identified as the driver who died after smashing into a stalled 18-wheeler at “highway speeds” on the Southwest Freeway, snarling traffic for six miles Tuesday afternoon.

The impact sheared the top off his four-door BMW when it rear-ended the tractor trailer around 12:45 p.m. in the southbound lanes near Harwin Drive, according to police and Texas Department of Transportation officials.

Police were unable to provide the identity of the driver who was killed Tuesday night, but the man who co-hosted the Houston-based TV series “Cricket World” confirmed that his colleague was the driver who died in the crash.

Dr. Kashif Ansari said his longtime friend and cohost, Khurram Ibrahim, 43, was behind the wheel of the BMW. The men hosted the sports show through a Pakistani cable channel TVONE for nearly four years.

The series was broadcast in North America, Ansari said.

“For his love of cricket, he would travel all over the world to watch cricket,” said Ansari while standing outside Ibrahim’s home in Sugar Land.

Ibrahim came to the U.S. from Pakistan three decades ago and graduated from Texas A&M University, Ansari said. He lived with his wife and their three children.

He last saw his co-host Saturday when they played a cricket match at the Pearland Islamic Center. He planned to travel with Ibrahim to the United Kingdom next spring for the 2019 Cricket World Cup.

It was not immediately clear what caused Ibrahim to crash into the stalled 18wheeler earlier on Tuesday.

The tractor-trailer stopped because of an earlier wreck on the highway and its operator had just finished placing traffic cones around the truck when BMW came over the overpass from Westpark.

The driver then hit the stalled vehicle.

The traffic jam that followed the wrecked stretched six miles and lasted for at least four hours as drivers used the Westpark feeder road as a detour.

By 5 p.m., police cleared the wreck.

TxDOT officials initially believed it would take crews until at least 8 p.m. to reopen the highway.

Earlier on Tuesday, an Oak Farms dairy truck overturned on the Southwest Freeway around 10:15 a.m. and blocked traffic near Fondren.

A second vehicle on the scene was also damaged in the wreck and towed.

The traffic after the morning crash was backed up to the Chimney Rock exit.

Yi-Chin Lee / Staff photographer Houston police and fire authorities investigate a fatal crash Tuesday, when a car smashed into the back of a stopped semi-truck on the Southwest Freeway near Harwin Drive, killing one person. The man who died was the host of a talk show on the sport of cricket, a friend said. Traffic was backed up for miles.

Yi-Chin Lee / Staff photographer HPD authorities investigate where a BMW smashed into the back of a semi-truck. A friend says Khurram Ibrahim, host of a sports talk show, was killed.