Pakistan (Commonwealth) _With immediate effect, Gary Kirsten has stepped down as Pakistan’s ODI and T20I head coach. Kirsten resigned just one week before Pakistan’s ODI series in Australia began, just six months after the PCB hired him on a two-year deal in April 2024.
Test coach Jason Gillespie will take Kirsten’s place during the six white-ball matches on the Australian tour, the PCB confirmed.
Since the board opted to deprive Pakistan’s recently hired coaches, Kirsten and Gillespie, of selection authority and reserve that power for a selection committee they would no longer serve on, a gulf had been growing between them and the PCB.
In the lead-up to the third Test match against England in Rawalpindi, Gillespie had made little attempt to hide his amazement at what had happened, claiming that “it wasn’t what I signed up for” and that he was now only a “match-day analyst.”
Despite Kirsten’s silence, people assumed he was unhappy with the previous events. According to the media, the board’s heated debates over Kirsten’s desire to have his opinion accounted for contributed to the delay in naming a squad and new limited-overs skipper.
In the end, only Aaqib Javed, a member of the new selection committee, Muhammad Rizwan, the new captain, and Salman Agha, the new captain and vice captain, joined board chairman Mohsin Naqvi. At the time, Kirsten wasn’t even in the country.
The present selection committee’s growing authority has made the coaches feel marginalized. Following Pakistan’s defeat in the opening Test match against England, they announced a new selection panel, the third in three months. The panel included Aaqib, Aleem Dar, Azhar Ali, Asad Shafiq, and Hassan Cheema, replacing the coaches and captain.
Dar came up with the original plan to prepare a recycled pitch for the second Test in Multan, which Pakistan ultimately won, while Aaqib served as the public face of the makeover.
Even for Pakistan cricket, Kirsten’s departure and the speed at which things have unraveled are truly remarkable. For starters, Kirsten leaves his position without having led Pakistan in an ODI, the format in which he had the most coaching success.
Several well-known candidates, such as Shane Watson and Daren Sammy, were considered during Pakistan’s three-month-long search for “the best in class” coaches for the squad, according to Naqvi. For the white-ball format, they ultimately decided on Kirsten, who in 2011 guided India to their first ODI World Cup victory in 28 years. praising the white-ball format, adding that our players had an amazing chance to learn from these seasoned pros, according to Naqvi.
Kirsten’s first significant competition, the T20 World Cup in the USA, marked an unfortunate beginning to his coaching career. Losses to the United States and India led to Pakistan’s early exit from the T20 World Cup, with the team eliminated in the first round after three games.
A few months later, Babar Azam resigned as white-ball captain for the second time. However, at the time, people believed that Kirsten needed time to establish himself and build a team, particularly because Pakistan would be hosting the first ICC event in almost thirty years in early 2025—the home ICC Champions Trophy.
Pakistani cricket has a rich history that includes outstanding players, exciting games, and occasionally unexpected scandals. The early resignation of coaches—some for personal reasons, others because of internal politics, or others because they were unhappy with the system—has been a recurrent issue in Pakistan’s cricket story.
Mentoring One of the most difficult tasks in cricket is managing Pakistan’s national squad, according to many. The role is high-pressure due to internal politics, public scrutiny, and the team’s unpredictability; as a result, a number of coaches have quit or left before their mandates are up.
These early departures are a reflection of the Pakistan Cricket Board’s complexity as well as the high demands made on coaches to deliver reliable outcomes in a changing atmosphere.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has announced that test coach Jason Gillespie will replace Kirsten during their limited-overs tour of Australia, which begins next week. The PCB accepted Gary Kirsten’s resignation and announced that Jason Gillespie will coach the Pakistan men’s cricket team for their white-ball tour of Australia next month.
