Former Pakistan head coach Jason Gillespie has accused current interim coach-cum-selector Aaqib Javed of undermining the coaches' position.
Gillespie was appointed as the Test head coach for Pakistan in April last year. Following the resignation of Gary Kirsten as white-ball head coach, Gillespie acted as the interim white-ball coach as well during Pakistan's tour of Australia. However, he didn't travel with the team to South Africa for the Test series late last year before PCB confirmed that he had been replaced by Aaqib Javed, who was given command of all formats as the interim head coach instead.
Now, following the disappointing exit of Pakistan from the 2025 Champions Trophy, Javed blamed constant management changes for the team's performances, to which Gillespie responded by calling Javed a "clown" and accusing him of undermining him during his tenure as head coach.
Gillespie: Javed was campaigning behind the scenes to be coach
"This is hilarious. Aaqib was clearly undermining Gary (Kirsten) and I behind the scenes campaigning to be the coach in all formats. He is a clown," Gillespie posted on social media.
Following his resignation, Gillespie had revealed that a reduced role and blindsiding behaviour of the PCB had made his job "untenable". “The straw that broke the camel's back was, as a head coach, you like to have clear communication with your employer, and I was completely and utterly blindsided by a decision to not have High-Performance coach Tim Nielsen," Gillespie told ABC Sport. "He was told that his services were no longer required, and I had absolutely zero communication from anyone about that.
“What I felt was my opportunity to help Pakistan cricket was diminished by the reduced role, in essence, basically hitting catches, and that was about it on the morning of a game."
The chaos of Pakistan cricket
"We changed 16 coaches in the last two and a half years and 26 selectors. If you do this to any team in the world, their performance would be the same," Javed said in a press conference on Tuesday (March 4), in response to which Gillespie made his comment.
Interestingly, Javed's position is not certain either as the PCB made it clear in their latest press release that he holds an interim role and that the search for a "permanent head coach" is on.
Not only has there been an uncomfortable number of changes in the backroom staff over the last few years, the playing and leadership group has also seen inexplicable shuffles. The latest one among them has come following Pakistan's Champions Trophy elimination where they have replaced Mohammad Rizwan as the T20I captain but have retained him in ODIs for the upcoming New Zealand tour.
Shadab Khan, who was dropped last year, has been recalled as T20I vice-captain, while Salman Agha has been appointed as the permanent T20I captain.
You can find the complete Pakistan squads for the New Zealand tour here.
