Pakistan red-ball coach Jason Gillespie shared his revamped role, which involves only tactics for games with no say on the squad selection as well. Both the coach and captain Shan Masood were removed from the newfound selection committee, announced after the defeat to England in the first Test in Multan as well.
“The PCB came out and made some changes after that Test match and it was decided that a new selection panel would come in and they would be making the decisions,” Gillespie said. “I was not involved in the decision-making. I am just a coach on match day strategy. So, I keep out of things now and just focus on players and getting them ready for cricket.”
When he was asked about his reaction to these new dynamics that he found himself in, Gillespie said: “It’s not for me to talk about now. I am not a selector. I am match day strategist [gestures air quotes]. As a head coach, I am all about players and my focus is on them. I will let the selectors do their job and we will go out there and play the best possible cricket we can play. I’m getting splinters in my ass for sitting on the fence here.”
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“We have spoken about how we can get the best out of our batting and put them under pressure,” Gillespie said about the inexperience of Rehan Ahmed and Shoaib Bashir. “We feel it will be important because England are going to rely heavily on spin in this Test match. And it sounds like we’re probably going to do something similar. They might not be necessarily experienced, but they’re very good bowlers and you must respect that. Although I say, ‘ignore youth at your peril’ – if you’re good enough, you’re old enough.”
Pakistan posted 366, batting first, on a re-used Multan pitch as well. They were 75 runs ahead of England while heading into the second innings as well.
“Experience has a lot of value and there is no question about that,” he continued. “But, there is no reason why players who don’t have 100 Test matches next to their name cannot have an impact. So, you just need to respect what they can do and England have two young spinners in the early stages of their careers and Leachy [Jack Leach] who is a much more experienced bowler. So, they have got good options and we need to make sure we’re at our very best. Our batters are really clear on what their plans are. With all the discussions that they are having. And we just have to go out there and play the ball on merits and hopefully we can put the England bowlers under pressure and post up some really good totals in this Test match.”
