Jason Gillespie Critiques Aaqib Javed Over Pakistan’s Test Chaos
Jason Gillespie has watched Pakistan’s latest implosion from a distance, and he does not like what he sees.
The former Pakistan head coach, who only last year oversaw a 2-1 Test series win over England, has launched a fierce attack on PCB chief selector Aaqib Javed after a sweeping mid-series cull that has left the squad in disarray and the dressing room, he believes, riddled with fear.
Pakistan, hammered by an innings and 103 runs at Headingley and beaten by 194 runs at Lord’s, responded not with calm reflection but with a clear-out. Head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed gone. Bowling coach Umar Gul gone. Seven players sent home between the second and third Tests of a live series.
For Gillespie, it was agony to watch.
“I feel for the players, this is these guys livelihoods,” he told The Australian, laying bare his frustration at a setup he once led. From his vantage point, the pattern is obvious: panic, not planning.
He pointed to Salman Ali Agha as the most glaring example of that chaos. Salman captained Pakistan in the first Test against England. By the second, he was out of the XI. Before the third, he was on a flight home.
“How does that work?” Gillespie asked, the question hanging over a selection system he believes has lost all sense of method.
The 49-year-old Australian fast bowling great did not bother with subtlety when it came to Aaqib Javed.
“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, accusing the chief selector of lurching from one decision to the next with no long-term vision.
The criticism did not stop at selection policy. It became personal after Javed recently 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 timeline, he argued, makes that claim absurd.
“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.”
For Gillespie, the most damning indictment is not tactical or technical. It is human.
He accused the PCB of showing basic disrespect in how players were informed they had been axed. Or rather, how they weren’t.
“There is definitely no communication between Aaqib Javed, who is meant to be chairman of selectors, and the players,” he said.
According to reports this week, several players only discovered they had been dropped when friends and family forwarded them the PCB’s official statement on social media. No phone call from the captain. No word from the coach. No direct message from the selectors.
“The players who were sacked heard it through family and friends and the media they had been sacked. How disrespectful is that?” Gillespie said, appalled by the process.
The backdrop to this storm is a series that had already slipped away. England’s innings-and-103-run mauling at Headingley set the tone, and the 194-run defeat at Lord’s sealed a 2-0 lead with one Test still to play in Birmingham.
The PCB’s response was to rip up the script.
Wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan was recalled. So was opener Imam-ul-Haq. Salman Ali Agha, spinner Ali Usman, pacer Khurram Shahzad, all-rounder Aamir Jamal and batter Awais Zafar were all brought back into the fold after being previously discarded or overlooked.
On the staff side, Sarfaraz Ahmed and Umar Gul were removed mid-series, with Mike Hesson and Ashley Noffke drafted in to take charge for the third Test at Edgbaston, starting on September 9.
It is a radical reset in the middle of a contest, the kind of jolt that can either galvanise a side or fracture it completely.
Gillespie’s verdict is clear: this is not the bold course correction of a confident cricket board. This is a team being shuffled on a whim, players left to guess their futures through social media posts and hearsay, and a selection boss under fire from one of the few men who has recently shown Pakistan how to beat England in their own conditions.
The third Test in Birmingham will reveal plenty. Not just about Pakistan’s resilience, but about whether anyone inside the system is prepared to listen to the warning coming from outside.
