The Logistics behind IPL & Cricket
IPL is celebrated as one of the biggest festivals of India and is one of the biggest sporting events in the world which takes every cricket lover on an exciting 2 months journey. As you hear the word IPL(Indian Premier League), it starts flashing you with the iconic moments like Sanju Samson scoring a century but just fell short of 4 runs to secure a victory for Rajasthan Royals. Explosive hitting batsmen like Hardik Pandya, Kieron Pollard and Rishab Pant turn matches into high scoring matches with their ability to hit big sixes and best death bowlers like Mohammad Shami, Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowls toe breaking yorkers to take wickets and win the matches for their teams. Players from all around the world gather to compete in teams, give their best to win the matches and are in the race to become IPL champions. IPL always delivers exciting and thrilling matches which includes inhuman catches, humongous sixes and swinging deliveries which exhilarates all the cricket fans around the world.
How things work behind the curtains.
The nerve wrecking matches that you experience on screen and in the stadium is the result of the collective effort of all organised processes that goes on behind the curtains. The logistic management of IPL ensures that each and every resource required to run the IPL smoothly gets at its right place at the right time.
Logistics is one of the most important aspects which helps in making all the equipment which are required to host the matches ,decoration of the stadium, cameras and utilities for the team members, ensuring and delivering all these equipment at right time and right place. Let's start with the cricket related equipment like making practice nets available before the matches for practice sessions for teams before their matches. These nets are very important for all the teams because you need to practice in these nets before the matches which helps them in delivering better performances and also getting an idea of how the pitch can be. Logistics makes this possible by delivering them from the manufacturing unit to the stadiums on the right time where the matches are going to take place.
Injury of a player while practising in nets or in an on going match is a pretty common scenario which is easily resolved by replacing the player, but can you imagine the cricket match without a ball? Vehicle breakdown and route changes are likely scenarios that can delay their deliveries since balls used in IPL is sourced from Kookaburra manufacturing plant in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh and replacing these balls like in case of players isn't a possible alternative because these balls which are used in IPL are perfectly customised to become soft earlier than expected which results in high scoring matches.
Similarly each resource utilised in IPL is sourced from several different locations with meticulous planning. Here's a list of most important equipment required for ipl and their source of manufacturing
| No | Equipment | Manufacturing Unit’s Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cricket white ball | Meerut, Uttar Pradesh |
| 2 | Cricket Helmets | Jalandhar, Punjab |
| 3 | LED Boards and Hoardings | Bengaluru |
| 4 | Cricket Bats | Uttar Pradesh, Chennai |
| 5 | Team Franchise Kits | Local sports manufacturer |
This journey of each IPL accessories is from its manufacturing unit to the IPL is front level logistics which is crucial but under the hood there's another logistics segment that forms the foundation of front level logistics. The backlevel logistics for the ball (and all the other equipments) used in IPL starts from the procurement of raw material i.e. wooden cork, leather, and thread from suppliers located in Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad and Hapur.
As the materials are procured the process of manufacturing starts and once the end product is produced thats when front level logistics come in action.Logistics life cycle starts from multiple points like getting raw material from various sources and then comes at single point that is manufacturing unit and again they go further to different multiple points to distribute the finished products to the vendors and stadiums.These logistics segments are interconnected, a small delay or error in one segment leads to a standstill.
Imagine you are sitting with your friends in a stadium all geared up to cheer for your team and enjoy the match and suddenly there’s an announcement saying today’s match has been cancelled because the cricket balls were not able to reach the stadium. Such a scenario has never taken place due to the detailed planning of logistics management of IPL & cricket in general but due to increase in popularity in such sports the competition is increasing which results in more loaded events which requires more precise planning. Hence the need of introducing technology in logistics of such sporting events is all time high.That's why all levels of logistics need to be coordinated and carried carefully which are interconnected to each other hence the need of a logistic management system is required in smooth functioning of IPL matches and related activities into a successful event.
Be it IPL, Big Bash or any sporting event the key to successfully running the event lies in strengthening and optimising the logistics using high end AI driven logistic management systems in order to reduce the manual work like paperwork and keeping a check on them constantly to avoid any loss of the information inscribed on the paper.
CargoFL aims at reducing manual work and keeping all the information hasslefree and its unified interface helps in bringing all the logistics related variables to one platform, keeping all the data in an organised manner.
Keeping Cricket, the game you love as it is meant to be!