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Former South African cricketer and renowned coach Gary Kirsten has broken his silence on the internal turmoil that led to his abrupt resignation as Pakistan’s white-ball head coach, admitting he “realized quite quickly” he would have little influence in the role.
In a candid conversation on the Wisden Cricket Patreon podcast, Kirsten laid bare the frustrations that defined his brief stint with the national side, emphasising that Pakistan’s cricketing environment lacked the structure and autonomy needed for coaching success.
“Cricket teams need to be run by cricket people,” Kirsten said.
“Once I was taken off selection and asked to take a team I hadn’t helped shape, it became very difficult to have any sort of positive influence,” he added.
Kirsten was appointed Pakistan’s white-ball coach in April 2024 alongside Jason Gillespie, who took charge of the Test side. Their appointments were widely welcomed as part of a new direction under the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). But what followed was anything but stable.
By October — barely a day after the squads for Pakistan’s ODI and T20I tours of Australia and Zimbabwe were announced — Kirsten had submitted his resignation. At the time, murmurs of a growing power rift between the coaching staff and the PCB had already begun surfacing.
Kirsten and Gillespie were notably left out of the five-member selection committee that picked squads for the latter stages of England’s Test series and the subsequent white-ball fixtures. The exclusion was seen as a clear indication of waning authority, leaving the foreign coaching duo increasingly marginalised in cricketing decisions.
“It was a tumultuous few months,” Kirsten reflected.
“I realised quite quickly I wasn’t going to have much of an influence. When there’s a lot of outside noise — very influential noise — it becomes impossible to lead a team in the right direction,” he added.
While Kirsten stepped away in October, Gillespie followed soon after, resigning ahead of the South Africa Test series in December. He later revealed that the PCB’s decision to part ways with high-performance coach Tim Nielsen — his former Australian colleague — influenced his own departure.
“It left a sour taste,” Gillespie said.
Despite the turbulence, Kirsten maintains a deep fondness for the players he briefly worked with and has not ruled out a return — but only under more professional, autonomous conditions.
“If I got invited back to Pakistan tomorrow, I would go — but I’d want to go for the players, and under the right circumstances,” he said.
“I love the Pakistan players. They’re great guys. More than any other team, they feel the pressure of performance massively. When they lose, it’s hectic — and they feel that,” he further added.
His parting words echo a recurring refrain among international coaches in Pakistan: that structural inefficiencies, blurred responsibilities, and external interference continue to undermine progress on the field.
“I’m too old now to be dealing with other agendas,” Kirsten said.
“I just want to coach a team, work with players. When there’s no interference and you have a talented group, you’re generally going to have success,” he concluded.
Following Kirsten’s departure, Aaqib Javed served briefly as interim white-ball coach before New Zealander Mike Hesson was appointed to take charge.
