IPL 3 About To Start - Get Ready.

All you crazy cricket manics out there,the latest season of IPL 3 is knocking on your doors. The third season of IPL is scheduled to be held in India from 12 March 2010 over a period of 45 days.

Four new venues, Nagpur, Vishakhapatnam, Ahmedabad and Dharamsala, have been added. There would be a total of 94 matches with each team playing 18 games instead of the 14 first phase games. The salary cap for each of the eight franchises also remains the same at $7 million as well as the number of foreign players.V:10

The third season opened in January 2010 with the auction for players. 66 players were on offer but only 11 players were sold. No player from Pakistan was selected, leading to an international political row with Pakistan interior minister Rehman Malik suggesting that the Pakistani players had been insulted.

Indian External Affairs minister SM Krishna clarified that the government has nothing to do with the selection of players for sporting events. Media reports suggest that IPL may have had security concerns over their availability for the tournament.

As always,the IPL twenty 20 tournament attracts plenty of controversies from skimpily clad foreign cheerleaders to accusations of commercialization of what at one time was named as Gentleman's Game.This year it was a matter of non-inclusion of Pakistani players and the political outfit Shiv-Sena threatening non-participation of Australian players as a revenge for attacks on Indian in Australia.

With money pouring heavily from almost every nook and corner of the sponsorship deals making the stakes simply too high for anyone who's associated with the game. From IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi to IPL Franchises to the IPL teams and their ever deserving players who make the game watch what it is worth for.

Moreover,like always a good amount of glamour quotient provided from who's who of Bollywood and not to forget their leading ladies like Shilpa Shetty and Preity Zinta.

So fasten your seat belts and get ready for the ride of your life. As Shah Rukh Khan puts it in his blog You must have heard a thousand times that the way to victory does not lie in how hard you can hit,but how hard you can take the hit. Till then keep the faith.

Look at the official Shane Warne IPL3 video & what Saurav Ganguly has to say about IPL3.