What is the best way to celebrate the second anniversary of India's second successful World Cup victory? With song, dance, cine and cricket stars, and quite obviously quick-fire cricket matches. As the sixth edition of IPL kick-starts tonight, here are a few apps that will help you stay glued on to all the action as it happens.

Schedules, Points Table, And Stats
Since T20 matches aren't too long (it just takes around 3 hours per game), there are chances that you may miss out on some of the matches, especially those airing in the afternoon. As the tournament progresses, you can use these apps that not only give you match results, but also keep you abreast with match schedules, team and player stats, and the all-important points table.

While there isn't one single developer offering apps across different mobile platforms, here are a few options you can look at. For the Android users the IPL 2013 Schedule & Scores is a handy app to have. Apart from schedules, and scores, it also gives you access to live matches (from the YouTube channel) and IPL-based tweets sorted by teams. In fact the app also lets you create reminders on your device so that you don’t miss out on any of your favourite team's matches. A similar app called IPL is available for the Windows Phone platform.

Those using an iDevice though will need to get multiple apps to get all of these features. For match reminders, along with schedules, there is the IPL2013. You can set reminders and share match schedule via email or SMS with your friends. But the app does nothing beyond that.

If you can live without the reminders option, the official BCCI app is a better alternative. That way you can know about all the cricket action that is happening anywhere in the world. The app is available for both Android and iOS platforms.

Getting Into The Party Mode
If you plan to get together with a few like-minded cricket-loving pals and enjoy matches in a stadium, then you'd probably want to know which game is being played in your city when, and where you can go grab a bite after the matches get over. That is where an app such as IPL Dugout can come to your rescue. However, the app which is available for both the iOS and Android platforms seems to be frozen in 2012 for now. Let's just hope that the app developers decide to give it a new lease of life before IPL6 goes underway.

Watch It Live
If the matches aren't being played in your city, or you find them a bit too out of your budget, then it'll be a better idea to watch live telecast instead. nexGTv, which is available to both Android and iOS platforms will stream all the 76 matches along with highlights and re-runs on a video-on-demand section. If your handset supports Flash or HTML5, then you can also turn to IPL on YouTube to catch all the action live. This is a great option especially when you are stuck at office with primitive HR policies.

Play It Virtually
For those who'd prefer dwelling deeper into the game, and enjoy fantasy cricket, can turn to Play IPL 2013 which is currently only available for Android users. The app lets you enjoy a fantasy cricket game with your friends in real time. You can predict the winner for each of the IPL matches to win points. Players with the highest cumulative points will win.

If fantasy cricket is not your cup of tea, and you'd rather play with a bat and ball on your handset instead, then check out the IPL Cricket Fever 2013 app. Available for both Android and iOS users the app is free for the former; iPhone users will have to shell out Rs 170 for the game, and the same is available for Rs 270 for iPad.

Tweet It Out
If you are a social butterfly, then you can keep up with all your favourite IPL stars via Twitter. But with so many celebs flocking the by-lines of the microblogging site, how do you know who's in and who's not? Well, look up for your favourites here, and you can start following their twitter activity.

That's it for the techie bits on IPL 6 for the time being. We will get you some more on it as the tournament progresses. For now, let the games begin.

Tags : Apps, Sports, Android, iOS, Windows Phone