Andrew Leipus is, by all accounts, a fine sports scientist. The Australian has worked at the highest levels of the game for decades, and his expertise in keeping elite cricketers fit and functional is not in question. What is in question is why, on the eve of a must-win match – a genuine season-defining clash against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in Dharamsala – Punjab Kings thought it was appropriate to send their head physio to face the press.
Nearly a dozen journalists had made their way to the HPCA Stadium on Saturday. They had questions. Real ones. The kind that, ahead of a knockout-or-bust contest after five consecutive defeats, practically write themselves. What’s the team combination? How is the dressing room handling the pressure? What has changed in training? Who do you turn to when your season is slipping away? These were the stories waiting to be told.
Instead, Dharamsala got Andrew Leipus.
To be fair to the man, he was gracious. He showed up. He answered. When asked about the significance of the toss, he said: “Yeah, it’s probably beyond my scope a little bit… The guys don’t talk about it very much. It is what it is.” When pressed about two consecutive losses on this ground and the conditions for an afternoon game, he said: “Again, beyond my scope. I’m not involved in anything to do with the cricket side of things. I tend to stay in my lane.”
He is right, of course. That is exactly his scope. That is precisely his lane. The problem is that Punjab Kings sent him to a place where his scope was always going to be insufficient, where staying in his lane was always going to leave journalists – and readers – with nothing of substance. It is not Andrew Leipus’s failure. It is a choice made by the franchise. And it is a choice worth examining.
READ BETWEEN THE LINES?
Punjab Kings are in freefall. Five losses on the trot. A squad that began the season with six straight wins and genuine title ambitions is now scrambling to qualify. And around this collapse, a circus has taken shape.
There was Arshdeep Singh’s Snapchat, which seemingly had no off switch. First came the clip that inadvertently showed Yuzvendra Chahal allegedly vaping on a team flight – a video that prompted the BCCI to issue an eight-page disciplinary advisory. Then came another Snapchat, this time catching the pacer making colour-based remarks toward Mumbai Indians batter Tilak Varma – calling him “Andhere” and drawing an unflattering contrast with a fair-skinned teammate. Then, as if to complete the hat-trick, Arshdeep posted a sharp-tongued reply to a fan who questioned his commitment, asking: “What have you done for Punjab, Singh saab? People who still ask family for chips and cold drink money are now advising me on Punjab?”
Then there were the reports of a split dressing room, of players unhappy with captain Shreyas Iyer’s attitude, of Prabhsimran Singh allegedly putting on 10 kilograms, of players missing flights and skipping early morning training sessions. The franchise pushed back, and they were well within their rights to do so. Much of what circulated had no named sources and no verified facts, and any organisation would be entitled to contest that. In its original form, their statement took direct aim at sports journalists specifically.
Co-owner Preity Zinta amplified the pushback, drawing a sharp distinction between legitimate criticism and what she characterised as deliberate misinformation. The statement was then quietly edited, the sharper language softened. The sentiment, though, was clear: Punjab Kings felt the coverage had crossed a line.
NOT JUST PUNJAB KINGS
There is a broader trend here that Punjab Kings are not alone in following. IPL franchises, and even international sides, are increasingly reluctant to send players or decision-makers who can meaningfully explain performances, tactics or team calls to press conferences. Part of this is understandable. At a critical moment in a tournament, you do not want your captain or your best bowler sitting in front of a bank of microphones and cameras, fielding uncomfortable questions about team dynamics or form slumps. That is a legitimate position.
But the global standard, particularly in football, is that the men who matter front up. Managers at the sharp end of a season, coaches whose jobs are on the line, captains whose teams are in crisis – they come and they face it. The press conference is not a courtesy. It is accountability.
There is also the broadcaster dimension. In the IPL’s media ecosystem, the broadcasters hold the best access. The Player of the Match walks straight into a post-game interaction with the commentary team. The breakout performer of the evening gets the plum TV slot. What remains for the written press – the journalists who will produce the previews, the analyses, the long-form accountability pieces – is, too often, a support staffer with limited scope and a mandate to say as little as possible.
And then there is the social media calculation. Franchises increasingly believe they do not need traditional media. Why would you, when your Instagram reel gets three million views and your post-match recap on X reaches fans directly? Punjab Kings, in particular, have cultivated a social media presence that is aggressive, reactive, and – when the team is winning – relentlessly self-congratulatory. The sledging and banter they deploy online, which they frame as fun, frequently tips into something more uncomfortable. Fans and journalists have called it out. When you are losing six straight, that online bravado curdles quickly.
IS THE MEDIA ALSO TO BLAME?
None of this means the media’s hands are entirely clean. Unverified claims circulate as news. The Prabhsimran weight story, the dressing room rift – much of it emerged from anonymous social media posts with no named sources and no confirmed facts. Cricket Twitter does not always wait for facts before it trends. Franchises are not wrong to push back on that.
But here is the issue: when a journalist travels to Dharamsala for a press conference – the one formal, structured occasion where access is guaranteed, where the journalist is there specifically to gain information and ask the questions their readers cannot – sending a physio is not a pushback against fake news. It is a refusal to engage at all. It is a team saying, in the most polite possible way: we are not interested in your questions.
The tension here is not really about punishment or payback. It is about a relationship that only works if both sides hold up their end. Punjab Kings have every right to demand accuracy. Journalists have every obligation to provide it. But accurate journalism requires access. And if the access on offer is a physio who can tell you nothing about tactics, selection, or the mental state of a team in crisis, then the press conference has become a formality – something to be ticked off, not engaged with.
Both things can be true at once: some of the coverage of Punjab Kings this season has been irresponsible, and the franchise’s decision to send someone who could not answer the questions that mattered most did nothing to improve it.
A physio at a pre-match press conference, on the eve of a must-win game, with a dozen journalists waiting and a season in crisis – that is not media management. That is media avoidance dressed in a polo shirt.
Andrew Leipus stayed in his lane. The question is: why did Punjab Kings send him to a road they had no intention of travelling?
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