The Indian Premier League has returned to the country after being forced to shift to South Africa due to security fears last year.

This time the 45-day event promises to even bigger and better.

All you IPL lovers, time for IPL season-3 has finally come. The month of April will start-off with the match between Deccan Chargers and Kolkata Knight Riders.

The ever rocking 45-days of Twenty20 cricket league would be hosted by Hyderabad. It would commence on 12-March-’10 and last till 25-Apr-09, as announced by IPL chairman Lalit Modi after a meeting with governing council on Tuesday. The 8 teams owned by all riches will play more matches than previous 2 seasons.

As per Lalit Modi; Ahmedabad, Dharamsala, Nagpur and Vishakhapatnam will be the 4 additional match staging centers. And will also stage one extra match, the 60th.

Instead of 14 preliminary phase games there will be 94 games, i.e. 18 with each franchise unlike 14 in the past. The window time remains to that of 45 days.

The first 2 days (12th and 13th March) of IPL 2010 will collide with final stages of Hockey’s world cup, to be held in New Delhi. Organizers of 2010 Hockey World Cup fear that their final day might go virtually unnoticed.

Just after 5 days of end of this IPL season, the world Twenty20 will open at Caribbean, West Indies on 30-Apr.

The governing council has decided to include 2 more franchise for the season 4 to be held in 2011.