Though his cricketing career was still in its early stages in the mid-1970s, Imran Khan's "love life" was a constant.

He generally brought a 'special' girl with him to his matches, claims a biography of Pakistan's celebrity cricketer-turned politician.

"One female undergraduate recalls having feigned an interest in the game ... just to be near him. Imran made it immediately clear to his companion that he was a man of no small ambition, displaying 'brass' which impressed her," the book penned by acclaimed biographer Christopher Sandford said.

It claimed that Imran generally brought a 'special' girl with him to his matches, or even to watch him practice in the Parks nets."

The 402-page biography noted that 56-year-old Imran, who had studied at Oxford University, was particularly fortunate to play his cricket at the Parks, a handsome, tree-lined ground that was only a short-walk from Keble.

"In the summer term his practice was to go directly from his early morning tutorial to the playing field, returning home again for a late dinner."

An Oxford teammate named Simon Porter remembers him as 'more inherently gifted, obviously (but) also more driven' than his colleagues.

"It wasn't unknown for Imran to attract a 'small harem' of supporters to the ground for even the most insignificant fixture," the book claimed.

Another colleague remembers, "on losing his wicket in one inter-college game, Imran went straight to the area where "a blonde in a sports car was waiting for him. He jumped in, and that was the last we saw of him for two days," according to the biography.

A subsequent Oxford girlfriend, another blonde now called Karen-Wishart, thought Imran a 'physically beautiful' man whose charm was nonetheless limited in its scope.

"One evening the two of them went off together to 'a little flat above a fruit and veg shop' in the Oxford suburbs."

Looking back on the episode years later, Wishart was left to conclude that Imran was a 'music and roses at night, pat on the bum in the morning' type, the biography said.

It would be only fair to add that another woman found him an 'attentive, funny and charming' partner, who nonetheless struck her as the kind who would 'hug you politely and then just stroll away once you broke up'.

The words proved prophetic, according to the book.

The biography said Imran "has always been a controversial figure, a man who gives rise to hot debate on account of his strong convictions and hard-line-views. His story is full of colour and contradiction - the practising Muslim who was equally at home in London nightspots like Annabel's and Tramp and campaigning among the slums of Lahore."

His mother's death prompted him to fund the first dedicated cancer hospital in Pakistan to the tune of some 5 million pounds while his well-publicised marriage to Jemima Goldsmith ended in an equally high-profile divorce, the book noted.