![\"Pakistans](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/609366_4377113_updates.jpg\")
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Pakistan’s former white-ball coach Gary Kirsten. \u2014 AFP\/File\u00a0<\/p>\n
KARACHI: Former Pakistan white-ball head coach Gary Kirsten has opened up on the circumstances surrounding his premature departure from Pakistan cricket team, citing a lack of authority and external interference as key reasons for his decision to step down.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the Wisden Cricket podcast, the South African cricket coach described his short tenure with Pakistan as \u201ctumultuous\u201d and admitted that he quickly realised he had little influence over key cricketing matters, particularly team selection.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a tumultuous few months,\u201d Kirsten said. \u201cI realised quite quickly I wasn\u2019t 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 to have any sort of positive influence on the group.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Kirsten has not ruled out a return to coaching Pakistan but stressed that it would have to be under significantly different conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I got invited back to Pakistan tomorrow, I would go,\u201d Kirsten stated. \u201cBut I would want to go for the players, and I would want to go under the right circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
He underlined the importance of cricketing matters being handled by professionals with relevant experience and criticised the external influences that impacted the team environment during his tenure.<\/p>\n
\u201cCricket teams need to be run by cricket people,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen that\u2019s not happening, and when there\u2019s a lot of noise from the outside – very influential noise – it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m too old now to be dealing with other agendas. I just want to coach a cricket team and work with the players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kirsten, though, spoke highly of the Pakistani players he worked with. \u201cI love the Pakistan players, they\u2019re great guys,\u201d he said. \u201cI 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\u2019s hectic for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
He reiterated that success is achievable with the right setup.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we get into that environment, there are generally certain things you do to help a team be the best they can be,”<\/p>\n
“And when there\u2019s no interference, you go down the road, and if it\u2019s a talented group of guys, you\u2019re generally going to have success,” Kirsten said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pakistan’s former white-ball coach Gary Kirsten. \u2014 AFP\/File\u00a0 KARACHI: Former Pakistan white-ball head coach Gary Kirsten has opened…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[1406,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-188209","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114691438499071189","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}