If you are an ardent fan of the modernized cricket and you enjoyed the glamour & excitement that came along with the Indian Premier League - Then you have a reason to cheer about. The much awaited IPL is back to make the country go crazy in 2010.

There are 97 players who have registered for the IPL 2010 auction. The list of players includes a maximum of 26 players from Pakistan, 17 from Sri Lanka, 12 from South Africa, 9 from New Zealand, 9 from Australia, 8 from West Indies, 8 from England, 2 from Bangladesh, 2 from Zimbabwe, 2 from Canada, 1 Ireland and 1 from the Netherlands. The players will be listed in the January 19th auction if the franchises express interest in them. Last year in 2009, 100 registered & 50 were in auction out of those 100.

Several individuals and companies have shown an enormous interest in owning IPL teams, such as actors Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgan, and Salman Khan , and the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group.

Bidders will be offered a choice of 8 to 10 cities that can be made their home team venues and they will be allowed to bid for any number of cities. The highest two bids will be chosen and companies will use the name of that city as their home base and sport their team brand.

The final schedule of IPL 2010 which is to be played in India has been announced. The first match will be held between the Kolkata Knight Riders & the defending champions Deccan Chargers. The IPL 2010 will begin on 12th March and the final match will be on 25th April, 2010. This time no new teams will be added but new players including the former ICL players will be available for auction for IPL 3. A few new venues - Vishakapatnam, Ahmedabad and Dharamsala have been added apart from the existing 8 home venues of each of the teams.

Initially, the craze started when top Industrialists like Mukesh Ambani and Celebrities like Shah Rukh khan participated in the auction and successfully won the bids for owning franchises in the Indian Premier League. The highest amount in this auction was for the Mumbai team. This team was successfully bid for an astonishing amount of $111.9 million or Rs. 503.5 Crores by Reliance Industries’ Chairman Mukesh Ambani. The next highest was for the Bangalore team which was successfully bid for $111.6 million or Rs. 502.2 Crores by the liquor king Vijay Malaya.

This huge amount of money was never seen in the history of cricket. The prize money announced was three times the prize money of a cricket world cup. IPL has managed to squash everything in its way & create history in the world of cricket. This is the main reason why the cricketers from all around the world are trying to make their place in the Indian Premier League.

Cricket is considered to be more like a religion in India than just a sport. And the God of cricket is here. So it’s going to be yet another season full of enthusiasm, excitement, glamour, & fun. It is going to be a success story all over again. So gear yourself up and get ready for IPL 2010. The pre- IPL craze says it all. You surely wouldn’t want to miss it, would you?

Check out exciting information about Shane Warne & Saurav Ganguly & get the latest news about IPL 2010.