THE ASIAN INDEPENDENT UK
Bal Ram Sampla
Geopolitics
Nearly two years after Jason Gillespie walked away from the Pakistan Test coaching job, one fact should embarrass the Pakistan Cricket Board more than any on-field defeat: it still owes the man money. Not a disputed bonus clause buried in fine print, not a matter of interpretation.
According to Gillespie’s own account, plain unpaid dues, sitting unresolved for the better part of two years. That the PCB has offered no public rebuttal, no explanation, and apparently no payment, is not a minor administrative oversight. It is a symptom of an organization that treats its own contractual obligations as optional.
A Pattern, Not an Accident
Gillespie’s departure would be easier to write off as one bad hire, one clash of personalities, if it weren’t for the company it keeps. Gary Kirsten resigned as white-ball coach within six months, citing differences with the board. Gillespie followed months later, reportedly after his authority was steadily stripped away as Aaqib Javed’s influence grew.
A slide he described as going from controlling selection, players, and staff to having no role in anything at all. By Javed’s own admission, Pakistan has churned through sixteen coaches and twenty-six selectors in roughly two years. That is not bad luck. That is a structural failure of governance, repeating itself with such regularity that it has become the PCB’s defining trait rather than an aberration.
Punishing Honesty, Rewarding Politics
What makes this worse is not just the instability, it’s who survives it. Gillespie and Kirsten, both gone, continue to be publicly blamed for Pakistan’s struggles across formats. Javed, the common denominator in both of their exits, remains in place as chairman of selectors. A board that allows the person accused of undermining two departing coaches to keep climbing while the coaches themselves take the blame from the sidelines is not running a meritocracy. It is protecting whoever plays the internal politics best, regardless of results. Pakistan’s results, across every format, have not exactly vindicated that choice.
The Money Is the Tell
Coaching disputes happen everywhere; personality clashes and disagreements over team direction are part of professional sport. What separates a normal falling-out from a governance failure is what happens after the relationship ends. A functional organization settles its accounts, even with people it’s parted ways with on bad terms. Because unpaid obligations are a legal and reputational liability, not a grudge to nurse. The PCB’s apparent silence on money it reportedly still owes Gillespie suggests either administrative dysfunction so severe it can’t process a settled departure two years on, or a willingness to simply let the debt sit because there’s no cost to doing so.
Neither explanation reflects well on an organization that expects to attract serious international coaching talent going forward.
Why This Matters Beyond One Coach
The damage here isn’t limited to Gillespie’s bank account. Every future coaching search the PCB runs will now happen in the shadow of this story. Any candidate vetting the job will find a public record of two respected international coaches leaving under a cloud, one of them still chasing payment years later, and an internal figure who outlasted both of them despite the team’s form declining. That is not a reputation you fix with a press release.
It is a reputation earned through repeated, self-inflicted dysfunction, and until the PCB pays what it owes and explains why it took this long, it has no real standing to be surprised when the next coach it hires doesn’t stay long either.
Reference
1.https://www.freepressjournal.in/sports/former-pakistan-coach-jason-gillespie-takes-brutal-dig-at-pcb-claims-board-still-owes-him-thousands-of-dollars-after-controversial-exit
2.https://www.yardbarker.com/cricket/articles/they_still_owe_me_thousands_of_dollars_jason_gillespie_makes_explosive_pcb_claims/s1_17726_44276826
