Imran Khan – sex symbol, matinee idol and pin-up cricketer – is not fantastically good looking. Maybe it’s because his eyes are particularly small, his nose contrastingly large, his facial skin slightly mottled and his chest hair peeks through the gold chain over his T-shirt neck. He looks as if he’s just woken up after a hard night of drinking, although, being a good Moslem, he doesn’t drink. And he appears exhausted. Anyway, it’s difficult to see what all the fuss is about.

‘I never thought I was good looking, ever,’ he says in his accent that is a hybrid of Oxford and Lahore. ‘People started saying I was when I became successful, so I equate it with success. My sister used to say I was ugly, and I agreed.’

He doesn’t have any of the flirtatiousness or overwhelming charm one expects either, but he does have a presence, a great gentleness, and what New Yorkers call mensch. Does he like being a sex symbol? ‘It’s one of those things you don’t take seriously.’

We’re sitting in his Knightsbridge maisonette, conveniently located above L’Escapade nightclub which is always full of the Sloaney blondes who fancy him the most. Up here there’s a mirrored dining room and canopied bedroom with painted tiger on the wall, a bedroom of great expectations. Imran is wearing track-suit pants and open-toed massage sandals with plastic bobbles.

The phone rings, the first of countless times. He is, after all, one of the world’s greatest all-round cricketers, an Oxford graduate in PPE (albeit a third) and a proud Pathan from an affluent Pakistani background. In the Eighties, he became part of the high-society Party Set, a darling of the paparazzi, he practically lived in the St James nightclub, Tramp. Once constantly spied in the company of beautiful women, his companions have ranged from artist Emma Sergeant to actress Stephanie Beacham, Susannah Constantine (erstwhile partner of Lord Linley), the daughter of the exiled King of Greece, and Sita White, daughter of Lord White of Hanson. He’s now almost 40, but the image of the hunky playboy lingers. However, most of the women he steps out with are now sensibly married and cynics say he only escorts them to get press for the cancer hospital he wants to build in Pakistan. So will Imran remain a bachelor?

His eyes light up when we start to talk about women, but he doesn’t smile easily. ‘People always assume that the reason I’m scared to give up my independence is because I have lots of women around me. That’s nonsense. It has nothing to do with that . . . ‘

Does he like his playboy image? ‘It used to bother me when my mother was alive because she was religious and it upset her. But it doesn’t matter now.’ He doesn’t think the image justified. ‘No. Playboys have a lot of money and time, and I’ve never had either.’ Well, is he a womaniser? ‘No. People just say that because I’m a single man.’ He says he doesn’t have a girlfriend at the moment.

He doesn’t want to discuss whether he finds affairs fulfilling. He crosses his arms self-protectively. ‘Er, by answering that question I put myself in a difficult position because this will get quoted in Pakistan. And in Pakistan, the mere fact that you admit you’re having affairs upsets a lot of people’s sensitivities.

‘I respect my own culture and a lot of young people look up to me. It’s a big responsibility for me not to make these admissions in public. Everyone knows I’m a single man and a normal man. But there’s no need to stick it down their throats.’

‘But everyone knows you have lots of affairs,’ I say. The door bell rings. Imran goes to answer it. ‘I didn’t realise people think I have affairs,’ Imran yells back, as he opens the door.

‘This is going to hack my wife right off,’ says the postman, excitedly, basking in Imran’s presence and handing him a parcel. ‘Like half the women in the world, she’s in love with you.’ Imran returns, looking coy. Would he have an affair with a married woman? ‘No, I think that is a sin. The biggest sin in my religion and my mind is when you hurt someone. You would stand to hurt the boyfriend or husband. There are guidelines in the Koran on adultery.’

Has he ever had a love child? His voice goes low. ‘No.’ If he got someone pregnant, would he have the child? ‘I’ve never thought about it. I’m pro-abortion. I think it’s much better not to bring a child into this world if you can’t give it love and security.’ So what would he do if he got someone pregnant? ‘Well, I won’t.’

He lives in Lahore again and is in London only for a couple of months, setting up a floodlit fundraising cricket match at Crystal Palace on 28 July, and to finish writing two books.

So far this year he has not played test cricket, having injured his shoulder in April, ‘torn tendons, amazingly still sore. It happened five weeks before the World Cup, but I couldn’t stop. I knew I was aggravating the injury.’

Imran has the longest fast-bowling career (21 years) in history. He’s also considered one of the only people who could keep the vitriolic regional differences at bay in the Pakistani team.

So is he retiring? ‘It would be silly to announce my retirement again’ – he did so in 1987 and then succumbed to pressure to return to the game – ‘but in my mind, this is it. I have probably played my last match. There’s no challenge in cricket any more.’

He is obsessed with raising money for his hospital, which came about as a result of his mother’s death of cancer seven years ago. She wasn’t diagnosed early enough and by the time she came to England, her intestinal cancer had spread to her liver.

‘My faith was completely shaken by her death. I stopped believing for a while. I was with her when she died.’ He looks down and sighs deeply. ‘It was the pain that affected me. It was the most helpless feeling anyone can go through to watch someone that close to you in pain and you can’t do anything about it. Then I realised there was a reason for what had happened – that I should build this hospital. If I hadn’t watched her in that pain, I wouldn’t have done this.

‘We don’t have one cancer hospital in Pakistan and, despite there being lots of heroin smuggled out of the country, heroin-based painkillers are banned because of the narcotics laws.

‘Things started to happen which showed me there is a force up there. The sort of course my life took showed me I wasn’t really in control of my future.’ Imran now believes firmly in God and prays on a mat facing Mecca every morning. ‘When I hurt people, it always affects me,’ he continues. ‘Since I’ve started building my hospital, a lot of people have come outside my house begging.

‘I hate people pestering me. I am public during the day when I’m playing, but when I go home I want to be private,’ he says, with feeling. ‘Sometimes, I lose my patience and am rude to them. I tell them to go away. Or I give them money and tell them to get lost.’

He is altogether less anglicised than one expects. He doesn’t smoke cigarettes (‘well, I had a few when I was at school’), although a packet of Cartier sits on the table. And he doesn’t drink, due now to his growing faith. Is he sure? He looks wrecked.

‘I’ve never touched alcohol. When I was growing up, I saw a close relative – I don’t want to name him – who used to drink a lot. That affected me. He was a powerful, dignified man whom I looked up to. But when he drank, his personality would change, he couldn’t walk properly and he would fall around and be abusive.’

Imran’s Eastern roots are particularly noticeable in his beliefs about giving children tremendous attention, love and security within the framework of an extended family. ‘I think you should give the children everything. The way British children are raised is alien to me.’

His own childhood was otherwise idyllic. Holidays were spent in the Himalayas or jungles and he wanted for nothing. He describes his childhood as growing up with a ‘security blanket’.

The son of a wealthy engineer, he has four sisters and the family is still ‘very close’. One of the sisters always stays with their father and he sees nothing strange in the fact that, aged 39, he still lives with his father. ‘We have a biggish house,’ he says, genuinely surprised. ‘It’s not a problem at all.’

We return then to the subject of marriage. He uses words like responsibility, self-denial and sacrifice. He takes marriage very seriously indeed. (He doesn’t believe in living with someone.) ‘Marriage for me is one of the greatest responsibilities a man has to take. I think a man is a failure if the marriage fails.’ He deflects from the questions by doodling. ‘You shouldn’t just marry for the sake of security. There’s a lot of self-denial involved, it’s a complete change of life. I’m not scared of the risk. No, I don’t think I am scared of commitment or intimacy either. I just believe that if you make that commitment, you have to be able to live up to it. You must be able to make it work.’

He says an arranged marriage is still a possibility for him. ‘Maybe that’s what I’ll end up doing. I’m not looking for an ideal woman. If something is meant to happen, it will. I have learnt you have no control over certain things in life. I don’t live in the future.’