Jason Gillespie Critiques Aaqib Javed's Chaotic Pakistan Test Overhaul

Jason Gillespie has seen Pakistan cricket from the inside. He left with a series win in England and a sense of progress. Now, watching from afar, he sees panic.

The former Pakistan head coach has launched a stinging attack on PCB chief selector Aaqib Javed after a sweeping mid-series shake-up that has ripped through the Test squad and coaching staff following heavy defeats at Headingley and Lord’s.

Pakistan were hammered by an innings and 103 runs in the first Test in Leeds, then outplayed again at Lord’s, losing by 194 runs as England wrapped up the three-match series with a game to spare. The response from the board was brutal: head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed gone, bowling coach Umar Gul gone, seven players sent home, and a new set of faces summoned for the dead rubber in Birmingham.

From Gillespie’s vantage point, it looked less like strategy and more like chaos.

“I feel for the players, this is these guys livelihoods,” he told The Australian, describing how painful it was to watch the situation unravel. In his eight months in charge in 2024, he had overseen a 2-1 Test series win over England. That now feels a long time ago.

What angers him most is the climate of fear he believes has gripped the dressing room.

“From the outside it looks like they are playing with fear,” the former Australia fast bowler said. One example sticks out for him: Salman Ali Agha. Captain in the first Test against England, out of the side for the second, and on a plane home before the third.

“How does that work?” Gillespie asked, the question hanging over the entire selection policy.

For him, the answer leads straight back 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,” Gillespie said, laying the blame squarely at the door of the chief selector.

The tension between the two has been simmering. Aaqib recently tried to shift responsibility for Pakistan’s current problems onto Gillespie and former white-ball coach Gary Kirsten. Gillespie was having none of it.

“Aaqib Javed came out recently and blamed (former Pakistan white-ball coach) Gary Kirsten and myself for everything that is going on,” he said. The timeline alone, 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.”

If the selection calls look erratic, the way they were communicated appears even worse.

Reports this week revealed that 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 message from the coach. No direct word from the selectors.

Gillespie was appalled.

“There is definitely no communication between Aaqib Javed, who is meant to be chairman of selectors, and the players,” he said. “The players who were sacked heard it through family and friends and the media they had been sacked. How disrespectful is that?”

The list of those recalled after the Lord’s defeat underlines how drastic the overhaul has been. Wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan is back. So is opener Imam-ul-Haq. Salman Ali Agha, spinner Ali Usman, pacer Khurram Shahzad, all-rounder Aamir Jamal and batter Awais Zafar have all been summoned as Pakistan scramble for a response.

On the staff side, Sarfaraz Ahmed and Umar Gul have been removed mid-series, with Mike Hesson and Ashley Noffke drafted in to take charge for the third Test at Birmingham, starting on September 9.

One series defeat has triggered a full-scale reset. Gillespie’s words cut through the noise: no clear strategy, no coherent communication, and a group of players left to absorb life-changing news via social media.

England already have the series. Pakistan now head to Birmingham searching for something far more elusive: a sense of direction.