The previous Pakistan The head coach Gary Kirsten has opened up about his short and tumultuous stint with the national team, revealing that excessive interference by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) played a major role in his early exit.Christen, who was appointed on a two-year contract in April 2024, stepped down as head coach of Pakistan’s ODI and T20I teams after just six months. His resignation came suddenly, barely a week before Pakistan was scheduled to tour Australia for an ODI series.
Soon after his departure, the PCB handed over additional responsibilities to the Test coach. Jason Gillespie.who was asked to oversee the white-ball leg of the tour of Australia. However, Gillespie also parted ways with the set-up after a few months, destabilizing the coaching structure.Reflecting on her experience, Kristen pointed to the constant outside interference in team affairs as the most challenging aspect of the job.“What surprised me more than anything was the level of intervention. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it at that level before. Did it surprise me? I don’t know, but it was significant,” said Kristen, speaking to Talk Support Cricket.He explained that such an environment made it extremely difficult for the coach to implement plans or build a stable working relationship with the players.“It’s hard enough for a coach to come in and devise a way that you can work with players when there’s just so much noise from the outside. It was difficult, just this constant noise from the outside and a lot of punitive actions around poor performance and things like that,” he added.Kristen also highlighted how coaches often become easy targets when results don’t go the team’s way, describing it as a counterproductive approach.“As a coach, you’re the lowest-hanging fruit when the team isn’t doing well, so let’s get rid of the coach or ban the coach because that’s the easiest thing to do when teams are performing and that’s kind of counterproductive in my eyes,” Kirsten said.
