Australian cricket great Jason Gillespie has shed more light on his shock decision to resign as Pakistan’s red-ball coach, revealing he didn’t know the team until the day before some matches.
Gillespie quit his post last week amid media reports of a breakdown in relations between him and the Pakistan Cricket Board.
The 49-year-old still had over a year to run on the two-year deal he signed in April, but followed South African legend Gary Kirsten in quitting.
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Kirsten resigned as limited-overs coach in October and Gillespie briefly took on that role before being replaced.
He had previously spoken of his frustrations with the PCB, but went into further detail during a wide-ranging interview with ABC Radio.
Gillespie said the decision to not renew former Australian coach Tim Nielsen’s contract as assistant was “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.
“There were certainly challenges,” he said.
“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.
“Tim Nielsen was told that his services were no longer required and I had absolutely zero communication from anyone about that, and I just thought after a number of other things that had gone on in the previous few months, that was probably the moment where I thought, ‘Well, I’m not really sure if they actually really want me to do this job or not.’”
He also said he felt like he and captain Shan Masood were on the same page.
“I developed a really close relationship with the test captain, Shan Masood, and felt we were certainly going in the right direction and things were going really well,” he said.
“All the feedback that I’d got or the feedback the PCB got was just how effective, you know, Tim had been in his role as well and the players were getting a lot out of him.”
Pakistan won their most recent Test series, bouncing back from a heavy loss to beat England 2-1 in stunning fashion.
After the first Test, which Pakistan lost by an innings and 47 runs, Gillespie said he was part of a group text message that told him there would be a new selection panel, of which he would not be a part of.
“I felt I was basically hitting catches and that was about it on the morning of a game,” he said.
“You want to be able to have clear communication with all stakeholders, with selectors, for instance, knowing what the team is as head coach well before the game, or before at least the day before the game.”
Former fast bowler Aqib Javed has been named as Gillespie’s replacement.
The position is fraught with danger with the country having a reputation for sending coaches packing.
Over the past four years, there have been six different coaches in the various formats.
