Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Mohsin Naqvi has cleared the air on Jason Gillespie‘s resignation as head coach of the Test team. The former Australia pacer Gillespie stepped down from his role earlier this month after PCB decided not to extend high performance coach Tim Nielsen’s contract. Gillespie was also upset over the fact that the PCB had also barred the coaches from having a say in the selection matters, a decision which had led to the ouster of white-ball coach Gary Kirsten.

“There were certainly challenges. I went into the job eyes wide open, I want to make that really clear. I knew that, you know, Pakistan had cycled through a number of coaches in a pretty short space of time. The straw that broke the camel’s back, I suppose, was, as a head coach, you like to have clear communication with your employer. I was completely and utterly blindsided by a decision to not have a high-performance coach,” Gillespie had told ABC Sport following his resignation.

With Pakistan set to take on South Africa in a two-match Test series, starting from Boxing Day, PCB chief Naqvi has shared his views on Gillespie’s sudden departure.

“The head coach’s role is to coach the team, while the selection committee is supposed to select players,” Naqvi told Geo News.

Both Gillespie and Kirsten were appointed on a two-year contract before the T20 World Cup 2024 and the PCB had promised a new era for the Pakistan team.

But once Aaqib Javed was brought in as senior selector and PCB granted him full powers including in team selection, the foreign coaches started falling out with the board.

Javed has also been appointed as the interim coach of the team across all three formats.

Pakistan lost the T20I series against South Africa, before turning the tables in the ODIs.

(With PTI Inputs)