New Delhi, June 15 Former South African cricketer Gary Kirsten, who coached India to the 2011 ODI World Cup win, revealed that a quick realisation of how he wasn’t going to have much influence as Pakistan’s white-ball coach forced him to step down.
Kirsten was appointed as Pakistan’s white-ball coach in April 2024, the same time when Jason Gillespie became the Test team head coach. But just six months into his job, Kirsten resigned from the role. Months later, Gillespie, who was the coach when Pakistan won the ODI series in Australia, quit the team’s coaching staff.
"It was a tumultuous few months. I realised quite quickly I wasn’t going to have much of an influence. "Once I was taken off selection and asked to take a team and not be able to shape the team, it became very difficult as a coach then to have any sort of positive influence on the group," Kirsten said on the Wisden Podcast.
Kirsten, who was also batting coach of the Gujarat Titans in the Indian Premier League (IPL), further stated he is open to a return to coaching the Pakistan team, but under the right circumstances and with no external noise.
"If I got invited back to Pakistan tomorrow, I would go, but I would want to go for the players, and I would want to go under the right circumstances. Cricket teams need to be run by cricket people. When that’s not happening and when there’s a lot of noise from the outside that’s very influential noise, it’s very difficult for leaders within the team to walk a journey that you feel like you need to walk in order to take this team to where it needs to go."
"I’m too old now to be dealing with other agendas; I just want to coach a cricket team and work with the players – I love the Pakistan players; they’re great guys. I had a very short period of time with them, and I feel for them. More than any other team in the world, they feel the pressure of performance massively; when they lose, it’s hectic for them, and they feel that."
"But they’re professional cricketers, and I’m a professional cricket coach. When we get into that environment, there are generally certain things you do to help a team be the best that they can be, and when there’s no interference, you go down the road, and if it’s a talented group of guys, you’re generally going to have success," he concluded.
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