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Gary Kirsten has resigned as the coach of Pakistan’s ODI and T20I teams. Kirsten, who became the coach in April 2024, could not last in his role for barely six months. In his place, Test team coach Jason Gillespie has been appointed as the coach of the white-ball team for the Australia tour.
The issue between Gary Kirsten and PCB
A rift had developed between Pakistan’s newly appointed coach Kirsten and Jason Gillespie and the PCB ever since the board decided to take away selection powers from them. This right will exclusively remain with a selection committee, of which he will no longer be a part. Gillespie made little effort to hide his surprise at the events that took place during preparations for the third Test against England in Rawalpindi. He said he was now just a “match-day analyst” and “it wasn’t what he was signed for.”
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Kirsten has not made any public statement but it is learnt that he was disappointed with those changes. ESPNcricinfo has learned about the delay in the squad announcement and that animated discussions were going on within the board about a new limited-overs captain, with Kirsten keen to consider his input.
However, when new captain Mohammad Rizwan was announced at a press conference in Lahore, only new selection committee members Aaqib Javed and new captain and vice-captain Salman Agha were present along with chairman Mohsin Naqvi. Kirsten was not even in the country at the time.
The rise in influence of the current selection committee has led to coaches feeling sidelined. The third new selection panel in three months was announced after India lost the first Test against England. It included Aqib, Aleem Dar, Azhar Ali, Asad Shafiq, and Hasan Cheema, while the coach and captain were removed.
Dar was considered the original architect of the idea of re-sanding the pitch for the second Test in Multan, while Aqib became the public face. Even new white-ball captain Rizwan commented at one point during the Test that Pakistan was now playing “Aqib-ball“.
Gary Kirsten’s departure and the speed with which things have unraveled is not surprising even for Pakistan cricket. This means that Kirsten has stepped down from his role without having coached Pakistan in a single ODI, the format in which he achieved his greatest coaching success.
Pakistan spent the best part of three months looking for what Naqvi called a “best in class” coach for the team, with several high-profile candidates including Shane Watson and Darren Sammy also coming forward. They eventually decided on Kirsten for the white-ball format, who led India to their first ODI World Cup title in 28 years, with Naqvi saying it was “a remarkable opportunity for our players to learn from these seasoned professionals.”
Gary Kirsten’s first major tournament was the T20 World Cup in the USA, where his coaching career got off to a poor start. The team was knocked out in the first round after losing to the USA and India. Babar Azam resigned as white-ball captain for the second time a few months later. But it was then believed that Kirsten needed time to find his feet and develop a team, especially with the domestic ICC Champions Trophy looming in early 2025, Pakistan’s first ICC event hosting in nearly three decades.
Pakistan’s tour of Australia begins in six days, where they play the first ODI in Melbourne on November 4. Pakistan will then tour Zimbabwe.
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