Follow UsPakistan’s first-round exit in the home Champions Trophy has opened a can of worms. First, their new head coach, Aaqib Javed, insisted that Pakistan’s lacklustre show was due to too many changes in the past year.
In response to that, their former head coach Jason Gillespie said that Javed clearly tried to ‘undermine them’ in the past and mocked the former Pakistan cricketer, calling him a ‘clown’. If that wasn’t enough, Mickey Arthur, who was Pakistan’s coach during their successful white-ball era, insisted that Pakistan cricket is its own ‘worst enemy’.
"I love this quote, to be brutally honest. Jason Gillespie is a wonderful coach, wonderful man. Pakistan cricket just continues to shoot itself in the foot. It is its worst enemy,” Arthur told talkSport.
Not just that, Arthur also revealed that Pakistan cricket were in the right direction when they appointed both Gary Kirsten and Jason Gillespie as their head coach in white-ball and red-ball formats.
“There are so many good players; they’ve got the resources now; there's so much young talent. They have incredible skill. And yet, it's still so chaotic. It's really disappointing to see. I thought when they signed Gillespie and Kirsten, they had gone down exactly the right route, and they had got some really good players. Because ultimately, it’s the players that lose out," he added.
Arthur also insisted that the ‘agendas’ driven by the Pakistani media are one of the main reasons for consistent politics in Pakistan cricket.
"They had got some really good coaches who could take them forward. But then that machine that works in Pakistan just keeps undermining, and agendas are driven in the media,” he said.
“It's a jungle out there and I feel desperately sorry for Gary and Jason. There's no doubt in my mind that they were undermined because it’s to the detriment of the players and ultimate to the detriment of Pakistan cricket.”
Pakistan have dropped both Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam for their upcoming five-match T20I series against New Zealand, starting a new era.