ICC Champions Trophy 2025: Ramiz Raja issues open threat to Pakistan Cricket Board after Gary Kirsten episode

Former Pakistan cricketer Ramiz Raja has blasted the Pakistan Cricket Board for the way Gary Kirsten has resigned as the team's white-ball head coach. Raja feels that it is going to be a difficult job from now onwards to hire an international coach for Pakistan.

Gary Kirsten was appointed as Pakistan's head coach in white-ball cricket in April 2024 for a contract period of two years. He was Pakistan's coach during the T20 World Cup 2024 where the side failed to go past the first round and faced embarrassing defeats to USA and India.

Kirsten resigned from the role just a week before Pakistan toured Australia for the white-ball series. Pakistan will play a three-match ODI series and a three-match T20I series in Australia against the home team. He did not coach Pakistan in a single ODI match during this tenure.

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Ramiz Raja tears apart PCB following Gary Kirsten's resignation

While speaking to the reporters ahead of the upcoming Australia tour, Ramiz Raja was highly critical of PCB's approach and claimed that Gary Kirsten's sudden departure would make things difficult to hire an international coach.

"When you search for international coaches, with the kind of backlash that you will probably get from Gary Kirsten's resignation...it's not going to be an easy, straightforward job for Pakistan to hire international talent," Ramiz said.

The former Pakistan batter further mentioned about the clarity with the team's head coach. He feels that Kirsten should have been given clarity about his role and needed to be asked how he wants to run this set-up.

"What you need to do is to make sure that once you involve and engage somebody, you've got to give them clarity regarding the role. I don't know whether that clarity was given to Gary Kirsten or how he wanted to get Pakistan into this one-day phase, what he wanted to achieve. I'm not privy to that," he reckoned.

"It's not great news" - Ramiz Raja on Gary Kirsten's resignation

Ramiz Raja also stated that it is not great news for a coach to be departing this way just before a series. He believes that Gary Kirsten's experience could have been useful in Australian conditions.

"It's not great news (Gary Kirsten's resignation) because Pakistan needed an experienced hand. From a distance, it doesn't look great just before a tour," Raja added.

Gary Kirsten has previous coaching experience working with India and South Africa. He was the head coach when India won the historic 2011 ODI World Cup title. He is also regarded as one of the best coaches to have ever worked with the Indian cricket team.

However, the mess in Pakistan cricket is something that is not easy to handle for anyone. Recently, the PCB announced the new selection panel after Pakistan's defeat in the first Test against England at Multan.

Why did Gary Kirsten resign?

The new selection panel comprising Aaqib Javed, Aleem Dar, and Azhar Ali removed the captains and the head coaches from the selection panel which faced huge criticism as well. However, Pakistan won the final two Tests against England on spin-friendly surfaces to get back to winning ways.

Pakistan's Test head coach was also not impressed with this decision as was Gary Kirsten. But Kirsten did not give any public statement after his resignation and straight away decided to leave the job midway.

The PCB recently appointed Mohammad Rizwan as Pakistan's new captain for white-ball cricket and Salman Ali Agha as the vice-captain in the formats. Pakistan's tour of Australia will begin on November 4 with the three-match ODI series against the home team.