Completely humiliated: Jason Gillespie opens up on his turbulent tenure as Pakistan head coach

New Delhi: Former Australia pacer Jason Gillespie has revealed inside details of his turbulent nine-month spell as Pakistan cricket team's head coach and disclosed several issues that led to his departure from the role.

Gillespie said one of the main reasons behind his short stint in Pakistan was the lack of communication from the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and cited the sacking of Tim Nielsen as high-performance red-ball coach as the last straw. Gillespie, while looking back at his short stint with the Men In Green, revealed that Nielsen's sacking was among several issues with the PCB which left him "completely humiliated".

Gillespie was named the head coach in red-ball cricket, and former South African batter Gary Kirsten was roped in for a similar role in white-ball formats by PCB in April 2024.

However, both Kirsten and Gillespie resigned in the space of two months, when Nielsen was told that his services would not be required before the tour of South Africa 2024-25.

Nielsen, a former head coach of the Australian team, was appointed as the high-performance red-ball coach in August 2024.

"I was coaching the Pakistan Test side. The PCB sacked our senior assistant coach with ZERO communication with me about it- as Head Coach, I found this situation completely unacceptable," Gillespie wrote on 'X' when asked by a user about his stint with the Pakistan Test team.

"There were a number of other issues which left me completely humiliated," he added.

Nielsen's removal from the high-performance role was the tipping point in the rapidly deteriorating relationship between Gillespie and the PCB, which ultimately ended when he refused to board the flight from Adelaide to South Africa and subsequently resigned.

During the period between his resignation and Kirsten's exit, Gillespie took charge of the team as interim white-ball coach. Gillespie was replaced by former Pakistan cricketer Aaqib Javed, who was also part of the selection panel.

During his time in Pakistan, Gillespie felt he was "completely and utterly blindsided" by the PCB. He told ABC Sport, "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 not to have a high-performance coach. Tim Nielsen was told that his services were no longer required, and I had absolutely zero communication from anyone about that."

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"And I just thought after a number of other things that had gone on in the previous few months, that was probably the moment where I thought, 'Well, I'm not really sure if they actually want me to do this job or not'."

As per a report in ESPNCricinfo, Gillespie and PCB are battling a financial dispute, with the Australian claiming he was not paid his dues, while PCB claims he did not serve the four-month notice period as per their contract