Pakistan's New Coach Says They're 'Used to Chaos.' His Predecessor Says Look in the Mirror.

On September 4, at Edgbaston, Mike Hesson sat before the press as Pakistan's interim Test head coach and said what everyone already knew. 'The guys are probably more used to a little bit of chaos than I am.'

Let that marinate. The man the PCB hired to stabilise the ship for the third Test against England — a dead rubber, the series already lost 2-0 — is openly admitting that chaos is the baseline for Pakistan cricket. Not a crisis. Not an aberration. A feature. The players aren't rattled by the dysfunction because they've never known anything else.

Hesson, Pakistan's white-ball coach, wasn't even supposed to be here. He was in Japan, preparing for the Asian Games. His only scheduled stop in England was the team's audience with King Charles at Clarence House. Instead, the PCB fired Test head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed, fired bowling coach Umar Gul, sent seven players home, flew in five uncapped replacements, and told their white-ball coach: congratulations, you're running the Test side now.

If Hesson's admission was diplomatic, Jason Gillespie's response was anything but. The former Pakistan Test coach — sacked himself barely a year ago — went scorched earth on September 4, laying into chief selector Aaqib Javed with a precision that suggested months of suppressed frustration.

'They change their mind like they change their pants — daily,' Gillespie told reporters, questioning whether Pakistan has any selection strategy at all under Javed. He accused the PCB of telling players they'd been dropped via media reports rather than face-to-face. 'The players who were sacked heard it through family and friends and the media they had been sacked.'

Think about that. You're a Pakistan international cricketer on tour in England. You're at the hotel. And you find out you've been axed from the squad because your cousin texted you a news link.

Gillespie's most damning assessment: the remaining players 'are playing out of fear.' Not for the badge. Not for the team. Out of fear that the next WhatsApp group rumour might be about them.

Here is a stat that should make every Pakistani cricket fan stop scrolling. After the second Test defeat at Lord's — lost by 194 runs — Pakistan's all-time Test win-loss ratio fell below 1.00 for the first time since 1987.

That's not a typo. For nearly 40 years, across 301 Test matches, Pakistan had always won more Tests than they'd lost. Their 154th defeat at Lord's was one more than the number of Tests they've won in their entire history. The ratio sits at 0.993.

The last time it was this bad, Javed Miandad was still batting, Imran Khan was still bowling, and Pakistan were 171 Tests into their existence. Victory in the first Test against England in Lahore in 1987-88 took their record to 40-40 and the ratio stayed at or above 1.00 for the next four decades.

Four decades of institutional memory. Four decades of being a team that, whatever their away-form issues, won more than they lost. Gone in a Lord's afternoon.

The fallout didn't stop at coaches and players. Misbah-ul-Haq — former Pakistan captain, appointed to the national selection committee just six months ago — resigned on September 1, the day after the squad overhaul was announced. His grievance: he wasn't consulted about the seven replacement players. The man on the selection committee was not involved in selecting the team.

Meanwhile, PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi planted his feet. 'I have never been afraid of criticism, and I never will be,' he said, calling the decisions 'essential.' He pointed to ranking improvements under his watch. He hinted at issues 'beyond cricket' but declined to elaborate.

Translation: there are things Naqvi knows that he's not sharing publicly. Whether those things justify gutting a touring party mid-series is a different question entirely. What's beyond dispute is the pattern: crisis, overhaul, new regime, fresh crisis, repeat. Pakistan have been running this cycle for five years, each revolution more violent than the last.

As if this tour needed another layer of absurdity, one of the dropped Pakistan players reportedly refused to attend the team's meeting with King Charles at Clarence House on September 2, apparently in protest at his treatment by the PCB. Media reports initially named Salman Ali Agha, prompting Hesson to fire back and call the reporting 'unacceptable journalism' and 'made up.'

Four of the seven dropped players did attend. The identity of the one who refused hasn't been confirmed. But the incident captures something essential about this tour: even the ceremonial bits — meeting royalty, putting on a brave face for diplomacy — have become contested ground.

The third Test starts on September 9. Pakistan have already lost the series. They have a temporary coach who was supposed to be in Japan. They have five uncapped players in the squad. Their chief selector is under fire from his predecessor. Their most recent selector has resigned. Their dropped opener is under investigation for faking an injury. And their all-time win-loss ratio, the one number that said 'whatever else goes wrong, we still win more than we lose,' now says otherwise.

Hesson says the squad has been 'really good' in training. He says they can 'give a better account of themselves.' He's doing what coaches do — putting out fires with optimism.

But Gillespie's parting shot is the one that lingers. Players playing out of fear. No communication. No strategy. Just a revolving door of coaches, selectors, and players, each new batch inheriting the debris of the last.

Eleven coaching resets in five years. Pakistan's players may indeed be used to chaos. The question Gillespie is really asking — and the one nobody in the PCB seems willing to answer — is whether they should be.