Jason Gillespie slams Pakistan board, details reasons behind resignation

Jason Gillespie has slammed the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and claimed that the call to remove Tim Nielsen was when he decided to resign from the role as the red-ball coach of the team. Gillespie had become the Test team coach in April this year, along with Gary Kirsten who took the same role with Pakistan’s white-ball teams.

Following Kirsten’s resignation, Gillespie took over the interim role as the white-ball coach for the Australia tour, where they won the ODI series down under. He would also oversee Pakistan’s Test series win at home against England earlier this year. The former pacer would, however, submit his resignation ahead of the South Africa Test series, following the dismissal of Nielsen, his senior assistant. Gillespie, in an interview with ABC Radio, would say that Nielsen’s sacking ended up forcing his hand.

The former pacer also slammed PCB for a lack of communication regarding the decision and ultimately he decided to walk away in the end.

“The straw that broke the camel’s back I suppose was, as a head coach you like to have clear communication with your employer,” said Gillespie.

“And I was completely and utterly blindsided by a decision to not have high performance coach/senior assistant coach Tim Nielsen (who) was told his services were no longer required.

“I had absolutely zero communication from anyone about that and, after a number of other things that had gone on in the previous few months, that was probably the moment I thought ‘I’m not really sure if they want me to do this job or not’.

Having been removed as a selector, Gillespie saw his role significantly reduced to just being a matchday strategist. The former pacer said that he wanted clear communication with the stakeholders to know what the team is atleast a day before the game.

Gillespie said such things made his time with the team difficult.

“You want to be able to have clear communication with all stakeholders, with selectors for instance, and knowing what the team is as head coach at least the day before the game, so you can help plan and prepare the players,” Gillespie told ABC Radio.

“Those sorts of things proved to be quite difficult and that just made things more difficult to do my job effectively.

“And then with the news the board decided not to let Tim travel to South Africa, I’ve heard that was on the recommendation of someone which I felt made my job untenable.”

After Gillespie’s resignation, Aaqib Javed was appointed as the interim red-ball coach, in addition to his white-ball duties.