Photo Credit: Twitter Profile Photo of @Jason_Gillespie
Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Mohsin Naqvi addressed Jason Gillespie’s resignation as head coach of the Test team, clarifying the circumstances surrounding his departure. Former Australia pacer Gillespie stepped down earlier this month after the PCB decided not to renew high-performance coach Tim Nielsen‘s contract.
Gillespie was also dissatisfied with the PCB’s decision to bar coaches from involvement in selection matters, a move that had previously led to the departure of white-ball coach Gary Kirsten.
“There were certainly challenges. I went into the job eyes wide open, I want to make that really clear. I knew that, you know, Pakistan had cycled through a number of coaches in a pretty short space of time. The straw that broke the camel’s back, I suppose, was, as a head coach, you like to have clear communication with your employer. I was completely and utterly blindsided by a decision to not have a high-performance coach,” Gillespie told ABC Sport after his resignation.
Ahead of Pakistan’s two-match Test series against South Africa, beginning on Boxing Day, Naqvi shared his perspective on Gillespie’s sudden exit. “The head coach’s role is to coach the team, while the selection committee is supposed to select players,” Naqvi told Geo News.
Gillespie and Kirsten were both appointed on two-year contracts ahead of the T20 World Cup 2024, with the PCB promising a new era for the national team. However, tensions arose when Aaqib Javed was brought in as senior selector and granted full authority over team selection, leading to friction between the board and the foreign coaches.
Javed has since been appointed as the interim coach across all three formats. While Pakistan lost the T20I series against South Africa, they bounced back to win the ODI series.
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Name of Author: Cricexec Staff
