Gary Kirsten has resigned as head coach of Pakistan’s ODI and T20I teams with immediate effect. Kirsten, who was appointed by the PCB on a two-year contract in April 2024, lasted just six months in the role and resigned just a week before Pakistan’s ODI series begins in Australia.
*The PCB announced that Test coach Jason Gillespie will take Kirsten’s place on the tour of Australia for the six white-ball games.
A rift had developed between Pakistan’s new coaches, Kirsten and Gillespie, and the PCB since the board decided to strip them of selection powers, leaving that authority solely in the hands of a selection committee of which they would no longer be a part. Gillespie had made little effort to hide his surprise at the events leading up to the third Test in Rawalpindi against England, saying that he was now just a “match day analyst” and that “it wasn’t what I wrote down”. for.”
Kirsten did not make any public statement, but was understood to be disappointed by recent events. Pak Gazette has learned that part of the delay in announcing a team and new limited overs captain was due to lively discussions within the board, with Kirsten keen to have her input taken into account. However, in the end, when new captain Mohammad Rizwan was announced at a press conference in Lahore, chairman Mohsin Naqvi was flanked only by Aaqib Javed, a member of the new selection committee, and the new captain and vice-captain Salman Agha. Kirsten wasn’t even in the country at the time.
Coaches have felt marginalized by the growing influence of the current selection committee. After Pakistan lost the first Test against England, a new selection panel was announced, a third in three months. Aaqib, Aleem Dar, Azhar Ali, Asad Shafiq and Hassan Cheema were in place, while the coaches and captain were removed. Dar was considered the original architect of the idea behind preparing a recycled surface for the second Test in Multan, which Pakistan won, while Aaqib became the public face of the review. He even led new white-ball captain Rizwan at one point to comment during the Test that Pakistan were now playing “Aaqib-ball”.
Kirsten’s departure and the speed with which things have developed is nothing short of surprising, even for Pakistan cricket. It means, on the one hand, that Kirsten leaves office without having coached Pakistan in a single ODI, the format in which he achieved his greatest success as a coach. Pakistan spent the better part of three months searching for what Naqvi called “best in class” coaches for the team, with several high-profile candidates, including Shane Watson and Daren Sammy, being sounded out. In the end, they settled on Kirsten, who in 2011 led India to their first ODI World Cup title in 28 years, for the white-ball format, with Naqvi saying it was an “extraordinary opportunity for our players to gain knowledge of these experienced professionals. .
Kirsten’s first major tournament was the T20 World Cup in the United States, an inauspicious start to his time as a coach. Defeats against the United States and India led to Pakistan’s earliest exit from a T20 World Cup, with the team eliminated in the first round after three matches. Babar Azam resigned as captain of the white team for the second time a few months later. But Kirsten was then believed to need time to get her feet under the table and develop a team, particularly with an ICC Champions Trophy at home in early 2025, the first ICC event Pakistan has hosted in almost three decades.
*0655 GMT: The story was updated after the PCB officially announced that Gillespie will train in Australia.
