Jason Gillespie revealed that he had no clear communication with the Pakistan Cricket Board regarding the playing eleven before matchday and added his role as their red-ball coach had reduced to him hitting catches.
Gillespie, the former Australia fast bowler, took over as Pakistan's red-ball coach in April for a two-year deal and led the side to a 2-1 series victory at home over England in October. But Gillespie stepped down from his position last week before Pakistan's Test series in South Africa.
Aqib Javed has been appointed as the interim Test coach of Pakistan, and he is also undertaking white-ball responsibilities since Gary Kirsten left the position in October. "I thought I was simply hitting catches and that's it for the day before a game."
"You want to have proper communication with everyone concerned, say with the selectors so that they are fully aware of what the team is in terms of what we as head coach want them to do even before the game or at least the day prior to playing," Gillespie added in an interview to the ABC Grandstand show while in the third Test between India and Australia at the Gabba.
He also said the communication between him and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) was not clear, while the sacking of high-performance coach Tim Neilsen and his reduced role, including not having a say in the selection committee, ultimately led to him stepping down from his role.
"I went into the job eyes wide open, I want to make that really clear.". I knew Pakistan had gone through quite a few coaches in not such a long period, so I put my case across and explained how I thought I could help. "You want to create an environment where players are relaxed but focused and get out and do the job and give them the freedom to go out and play the game". I felt that in the red ball, in the Test side, we were pretty much on track doing that, which culminated into that series win against England. "So a lot of good stuff happened from when I took the job on to where things have finished up (now), I didn't get on the plane on Friday.". Maybe it is that the final straw, as they say, was, as a head coach, you like to have clear communication with your employer. I was totally and completely 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, 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 really want me to do this job or not'," he said. Gillespie also mentioned that he had a great relationship with skipper Shan Masood and that the feedback about Nielsen's work has been positive. "I really did develop a very close rapport with the test captain Shan Masood and felt that we were certainly moving in the right direction and everything was going really well".
"All the feedback that I got or the feedback that PCB got was just how effective Tim had been in his role as well and the players were getting a lot out of him". They called him grandpa and there was some good banter between the boys. "Shan and I spoke a lot about that and the players about whether you play one Test match or 100, it's irrelevant. If you've got something of value to contribute to the team you can do that in a safe space and we felt we were making so many gains in that space," he concluded.
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