The answer lies in your post itself. Maybe the organisers thought that a 'sraight knock-out' format immediatly after the first round would be too abrupt - like a guillotine solution. For example, if South Africa & Bangladesh had met in a second round knockout match on the slow Guyana pitch, the Saffers would have been eliminated. Without taking anything away from BD's exellent performance on the day, that result would have been unrealistic from a larger perspective; depite the initial excitement, major teams would soon have realised the futility of such a format.

But in changing it, they went too far the other way and made it into a 'Super' type second round, where every qualifier plays everyone else except the one that they played in the first round. That and the stupid 'carry over points' system should be scrapped. An in-between format where the winners of Groups A & D form Pool 1 with the runners of Groups B & C AND the runners of A & D form the Pool 2 with winners from B & C, would be ideal. Points in the second round would be fresh ones with no carry over from the first round. Then the winners from Pool 1 would meet runners of Pool 2 in the semi-final and vice-versa.

Surely the answer as to why there are two pool rounds is simple: cash. Get the punters in - well, at least a few - as often as you can. I personally would rather see only one pool round, then straight into an eight team knock-out. But then I am a member of the potential paying public, not of the potential milkers of a cash cow (which, in this case, seems to have gone a bit dryer than anyone expected, and dryer than is really good for the worldwide image of the game).

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I disagree, because for Bangladesh to advance to the next round (excluding freak events such as weather and forfiets) they would have to beat 2-3 frontline teams in the pool matches, so the chances of them even making it to the quarters are pretty unrealistic, and rightfully so.

In the 1996 competition, it was the top eight who battled it out in the quarters, and the rightful winner in Sri Lanka won the tournament. I like this format because it is very uncluttered, and in my opinion draws the fair winner. But it would become too similar to the champions trophy, another cash cow.

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- VVVRulz..

This was changed because everyone felt sorry for South Africa who got knocked out due to one Lara innings having been the best team by quite some margin in the group stages.