Pakistan cricket is a mess; that is not unknown knowledge. But just how deep the rot is can be gauged from the fact that Gary Kirsten, a World Cup winner with India (2011) and Test Mace winner with South Africa, failed to keep up with the brazenness of the cricket environment there.
He arrived in Pakistan in April 2024 with a two-year contract and was gone just six months into the job. Speaking out, the South African revealed why it is hard to adapt to Pakistan’s cricketing culture.
What surprised Kirsten the most about Pakistan cricket?
Kirsten told talkSPORT Cricket that the sheer scale of outside influence on team affairs was unlike anything he had encountered in his career: “The thing that surprised me more than anything was the level of interference. I don’t think I have ever seen it at that level before. Did it surprise me? I don’t know, but it was significant.”
More than just the influence over general activities, Kirsten felt uncomfortable due to the involvement of non-related people in selection.
“It was a tumultuous few months,” the 58-year-old was quoted as saying on the Wisden Podcast, right after Pakistan were knocked out of the 2024 T20 World Cup in the very first round itself.
“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 without being able to shape it, it became very difficult as a coach to have any sort of positive influence on the group,” he added.
Cricket Teams Need to Be Run by Cricket People
Kirsten was blunt about the structural rot. “Cricket teams need to be run by cricket people. When that’s not happening and when there’s a lot of influential noise from the outside, 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.”
His concerns seem to be quite true, as Pakistan cricket has become an even bigger mess since the time Kirsten left. Kirsten, now the coach of the Sri Lankan cricket team, seems to be the messenger that was shot, and the results are evident with Pakistan failing to make the semi-final in T20 World Cup 2026 and also losing an ODI series to Bangladesh.