Some of the most fearsome fast bowlers Imran Khan has seen were bowling. Mudassar Nazar was at the non-striker’s end, swathed in protective gear. Taking stance, wearing only “a floppy hat and a smile”, was not a Pakistani opener, but a politician: former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, fulfiling his lifelong fantasy of playing international cricket.

“International, professional batsmen used to stay up all night when playing West Indies.... Imagine now, Sharif, who had probably played the lowest form of club cricket, opened the batting against them. I thought he would be killed.... But that reflected his mindset. When he became the Prime Minister, I was proved right. He was a daydreamer,” said Imran.

The anecdote from October 1987 when Pakistan faced West Indies in a warm-up match before the World Cup swung in viciously towards the stumps of those standing in the way of the only World Cup-winning captain becoming the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

The topic at the Monday evening session of the Calcutta Literary Meet, in association with The Telegraph, was “Captaining a Nation: Cricket, Politics, Pakistan” and the captain in question was in charge from the first ball.

With the audience taking too long to settle down and the organisers wondering what to do, Imran got off the sofa and walked to the podium and boomed into the microphone: “Thank you for the warm welcome. Let’s get on (with it).”

He was at the podium for the rest of the session, addressing the audience while answering writer Rahul Bhattacharya’s questions, as if at a political rally.

Politics aptly dominated the interaction. It was after all Imran the politician warming up for Imran the cricketer to go full tilt at the Tiger Pataudi Memorial Lecture, organised jointly by Bengal Club and The Telegraph, at The Oberoi Grand later in the evening.

But even at Milan Mela he did not pull any punches when the topic did, well, swing to cricket. When a 75-year-old member of the audience asked him about an outswinger that took the edge of Sunil Gavaskar’s bat at the Eden Gardens many winters ago, he could not remember the delivery but did not let go of the chance to remind the audience that Dhoni and company could do with a Gavaskar up the Test batting order. “It’s not easy what India has achieved. Eight (overseas) losses in a row in Test matches is very difficult,” said the Pathan among fast bowlers, rubbing it in.

But cricket was like a drinks break in what was a political match. “I would have loved a bit more cricket,” Sri Lankan writer Shehan Chinaman Karunatilaka was left wishing after the session.

But not everyone was disappointed. In the audience was also Tazeen Choudhury Poddar, a city professional with roots in Pakistan and a fan of Imran the Tehreek-e-Insaf leader soaring up the popularity charts in the neighbouring country.

The political captain did not go to the backfoot even once when spelling out his policies, which is uncomfortably close to those of the extreme right wing for many.

His central message, that corruption is the biggest impediment to the development of the subcontinent, struck a chord with the audience, which burst into applause every few minutes. Imran even dismissed the current Pakistani government as the most corrupt and incompetent he had seen.

Is Anna Hazare the answer? “Hazare would be much more effective if he had a political party,” felt Imran.

He was virulent in his criticism of American foreign policy, blaming it for unrests in several parts of the world, including Pakistan.

Bhattacharya bowled a Satanic Verses bouncer to pro-ban Imran: how could he draw a parallel between the Holocaust in which millions of people had died with a book that had not killed anyone (as he had once done while criticising the Muslim leadership’s failure to convince the West about the hurt the book had caused)?

The man who had averaged over 50 with the bat in his last 10 years of Test cricket rose up on his toes and dropped the ball at his feet. “What is painful for a human community only that community should decide.... The idea is that human communities should live peacefully with each other.... No one should have the right to inflict pain on another.”

Imran stepped out in the slog overs. “Winning and losing on the cricket field for 21 years has made me develop this instinct; I would know before winning that I would win.... And I know I will sweep the next elections.”

The event ended prematurely when a question-answer session was cut short by a power failure — which the Publishers and Booksellers and Guild later claimed was done “deliberately” to allow Imran to leave in a hurry — that plunged the auditorium into darkness.