Pakistan Cricket Crisis: Gillespie's Scathing Attack on Aaqib Javed
The fallout from Pakistan’s bruising tour of England has turned into open warfare, and this time the fiercest blows are coming from one of their own former coaches.
The Pakistan Cricket Board’s decision to send seven players and two coaches home midway through the Test series has already stunned the cricket world. Now Jason Gillespie has taken direct aim at chairman of selectors Aaqib Javed, accusing him of chaos, blame-shifting and a complete absence of strategy.
Gillespie unloads on Javed
The PCB reacted to heavy defeats at Headingley and Lord’s by axing Mohammad Rizwan, Imam-ul-Haq, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed and Umar Gul, among others, and handing control of the Test side to white-ball coach Mike Hesson. It was a brutal reset after two games.
From Gillespie’s vantage point, it was also a damning indictment of the people running the team.
“I feel for the players, this is these guys livelihoods. From the outside, it looks like they are playing with fear,” he told Code Sports, highlighting Salman Ali Agha’s treatment as the most glaring example of the turmoil.
Salman captained Pakistan in the first Test against England. By the second, he was out of the side. Before the third, he was on a plane home.
“How does that work?” Gillespie asked, letting the question hang over a selection panel that has chopped and changed at breakneck speed.
For Gillespie, the pattern leads back to one man.
“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, stripping away any diplomatic veneer.
‘Look in the mirror’
Javed, a former Pakistan fast bowler and now director of high performance as well as chairman of selectors, has not been shy about firing shots of his own. He has repeatedly pointed fingers at Gillespie and former head coach Gary Kirsten, claiming there was no communication and that they ignored him.
Gillespie has heard that line before. He is no longer prepared to let it slide.
“Aaqib Javed came out recently and blamed Gary Kirsten and myself for everything that is going on. Aaqib has been the 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,” he said.
The Australian went further, painting a picture of players left in the dark as their careers were upended.
“There is definitely no communication between Aaqib Javed, who is meant to be chairman of selectors, and the players. The players who were sacked heard it through family and friends and the media that they had been sacked,” he added.
For a national side already reeling from an innings-and-103-run defeat at Headingley and a 194-run loss at Lord’s, those words cut deep. The criticism is no longer about tactics or team balance. It is about trust, leadership and basic respect.
A team in disarray, a series still alive
On the field, England have dominated. Pakistan have been outplayed with bat and ball, crushed first in Leeds, then in London. Off the field, the response has been even more dramatic: seven players shipped out, seven replacements drafted in, and Hesson suddenly asked to salvage a sinking Test campaign.
The pressure around Aaqib Javed and the PCB now feels suffocating. Former players have lined up to condemn the mid-series clear-out, with Gillespie’s broadside the latest and perhaps the most personal.
All of it feeds into a single, stark reality. Pakistan arrive in Birmingham for the third and final Test at Edgbaston on September 9 not just trying to avoid a whitewash, but fighting to prove that someone, somewhere, still has a grip on what this team is supposed to be.
