Gillespie thought about the India job
Jason Gillespie, former Australian cricketer, has revealed he thought long and hard about applying for Indian cricket team’s coaching job, which was eventually assigned to Ravi Shastri.
Gillespie, who in past has won the County Championship twice in succession with Yorkshire in England as well as the Big Bash League (BBL) in Australia with Adelaide Strikers, has had an impressive run as a coach.
Gillespie, who has now taken up an interim coaching role with Papua New Guinea (PNG), was set to coach Australia A on their tour of South Africa. The tour, however, got cancelled as the Australian cricketers refused to travel in wake of Cricket Australia (CA) and Australian Cricketers Association (ACA) failing to arrive at a solution regarding the payment dispute.
Gillespie was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au, “I talked a lot about that with my family. I to’ed and fro’ed. I had days where I thought, ‘right, I’m definitely applying for it, I’m going to have a crack and see how far I get’.”
“Other days where I wasn’t so sure. In the end I just felt I wasn’t quite ready for that opportunity. I think it would have been a wonderful job and I congratulate Ravi Shastri on getting that job. Maybe one day in a couple of years that’d be something I’d seriously consider,” he added.
The 42-year-old also gave a miss to the opportunity that is available with Sri Lanka, after the governing body in the SL sacked Graham Ford despite having a successful record.
“It’d be a wonderful job (coaching Sri Lanka),” Gillespie said. “Sri Lanka was one of my favourite places to tour as a player, I loved playing cricket there, I love the country, it’d be a fantastic job,” he added.
“But, and this is with all due respect, they haven’t had a history of sticking with their coaches for too long so that would definitely be in the back of all coaches’ minds. The recent history over last five or so years, there’s been a high turnover of coaches so that certainly would be in the back of coaches’ minds – it’d be in the back of my mind,” he added.
The former Australian cricketer in a way backed BCCI’s call to make Shastri the head coach.
“You’ve always just got to have an approach to just select the best guy. If it’s a local guy, it’s a local guy. If it’s an international, then so be it. All you can do as a coach is present your case on how you think you can make a difference and help the team perform better,” he said.
“If you’re the best man for the job, then you should get offered that opportunity. Speaking as a coach, you only want to be judged on whether you think you can make a difference and help the side, and that’s how it should be. We’ll have to wait and see on what jobs come up in the future,” Gillespie concluded.