Jason Gillespie has seen enough of Pakistan cricket from the inside to know chaos when it’s brewing. This week, watching from afar, he watched it boil over.
In the space of two bruising Tests against England, Pakistan were thrashed at Headingley by an innings and 103 runs, then beaten by 194 runs at Lord’s. The response from the Pakistan Cricket Board was brutal: a mid-series clear-out that stunned the dressing room and left one of their former head coaches seething.
Head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed gone. Bowling coach Umar Gul gone. Seven players sent home. A new coaching team flown in for the third Test in Birmingham on September 9, with Mike Hesson and Ashley Noffke suddenly handed the reins.
For Gillespie, who spent eight months in charge in 2024 and oversaw a 2-1 Test series win over England, the spectacle has been painful.
“I feel for the players, this is these guys livelihoods,” he told The Australian, laying bare his frustration. From his vantage point, this isn’t just a team losing cricket matches. It’s a squad paralysed. “From the outside it looks like they are playing with fear,” the former fast bowler said.
Nothing illustrates that churn better than the case of Salman Ali Agha. One week, he’s captaining Pakistan in the first Test against England. The next, he’s out of the side for the second Test. Before the third, he’s on a plane home.
“How does that work?” Gillespie asked, the question hanging over a selection set-up that has once again become the story.
At the heart of his anger is PCB chief selector Aaqib Javed. Gillespie didn’t bother to soften the blow.
“It’s pretty clear they don’t have a selection strategy at all, particularly under Aaqib Javed. They change their mind like they change their pants — daily,” he said, turning the spotlight firmly on the man in charge of picking the team.
The criticism didn’t come in isolation. It was a direct response to Javed’s own recent comments, in which the selector tried to pin Pakistan’s current problems on Gillespie and former white-ball coach Gary Kirsten.
“Aaqib Javed came out recently and blamed (former Pakistan white-ball coach) Gary Kirsten and myself for everything that is going on,” Gillespie said. The timing and the logic, he suggested, simply didn’t stack up.
“Aaqib has been chairman of selectors for the past two years. We haven’t even been there. Somehow he claims it is our fault. Make sense out of that. I think Javed needs to look at himself in the mirror.”
The selection table wasn’t Gillespie’s only concern. The way players discovered they had been axed cut just as deep.
“There is definitely no communication between Aaqib Javed, who is meant to be chairman of selectors, and the players,” he said.
Reports this week painted an ugly picture. Several players only realised they had been dropped when friends or family forwarded them the PCB’s official statement on social media. No phone call from the selectors. No message from the captain. No word from the coaching staff.
“The players who were sacked heard it through family and friends and the media they had been sacked. How disrespectful is that?” Gillespie said.
Behind the numbers on the scoreboard, that is the real damage: trust eroded, careers jolted mid-series, and a squad left guessing who might be next.
The PCB’s reaction to the defeats was sweeping. Wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan, opener Imam-ul-Haq, Salman Ali Agha, spinner Ali Usman, pacer Khurram Shahzad, all-rounder Aamir Jamal and batter Awais Zafar were all recalled for the third Test, as Pakistan scrambled for answers with the series already gone and England 2-0 up.
On paper, it looks like a reset. In reality, it feels more like a fire drill.
Hesson and Noffke now walk into a dressing room that has seen its head coach, bowling coach and a chunk of its squad turned over in the space of days. They inherit not only a team chasing a consolation win in Birmingham, but also a fractured environment, with selection policy and communication under open fire from one of the most respected coaches to have held the job.
The third Test will show whether Pakistan can salvage pride on the field. The bigger question lingers off it: who, if anyone, is going to restore order to the way this team is being run?
