Six months after being appointed the ODI and T20I coach of Pakistan Men, Gary Kirsten has stepped down from the job.
The PCB had appointed Kirsten as head coach for the senior men’s white-ball teams on April 28, 2024, while Jason Gillespie was named head coach of the Test side. Exactly six months later, Kirsten has stepped down from the role.
The PCB on Monday (October 28) confirmed that Kirsten has submitted his resignation, which was accepted by the board. This comes after several reports had been doing the rounds around the development.
ESPNCricinfo reported “a rift” developing between Kirsten and Gillespie, and the PCB, since the board “decided to strip them of selection powers”. A Cricbuzz report, on the other hand, has mentioned “serious differences of opinion between Kirsten and the players” and that the PCB turned down his request to appoint David Reid as a high performance coach.
“I’m not a selector, I’m a match-day strategist as head coach,” Gillespie said at a recent press conference. “My focus is on the players. I’ll let the selectors do their job ... I’m getting splinters in my arse from sitting on the fence here.”
After England thrashed Pakistan in the first Test match, Pakistan appointed a new five-member selection panel. They took the bold decisions of leaving out Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi, and Naseem Shah, and Pakistan turned things around to win the series 2-1.
