World T20 in the same boring format

Well today the first T20 game of the third edition of the same will kick off with the first match scheduled between New Zealand and Sri Lanka on one side with Bangladesh set to play Pakistan on the other. However, keeping all excitements apart, one has to adjudge as to how far is the tournament which is a major one as far as the game of cricket goes is a justified one! Since the past three years since its inaugural edition the format of the game tournament has found to remain the same for reason I doubt known to even the ICC.

Since its inaugural edition, the format of the world T20 is filled with the same first round robin stage where there are four groups with three teams in every group. And each group consists of one non test playing nation or Bangladesh grouped with two other comparitively stronger teams. And 8 teams move on to the next round namely the super eight stage which is once again divided into two groups consisting of 4 teams. And in each of these groups, each of the four teams play each other once to qualify to the semi finals which has till date never changed and will never change.

The semi finals as usual consists of four teams divided into two where two teams out of four fight it out for a place in the final which decides who the winner is. This is just boring as it can get. The initial round robin stage of the tournament is fine. But, the super eight stage needs some refinement where instead of having two groups each of which having four teams can be combined to a single general group with each team fighting it out with other teams barring the team which it has encountered earlier in the round robin stage.

One can imagine the super six stage of the world cups in 1999 and 2003 which was further promoted to super eight stage giving the teams an optimum chance to correct their mistakes. There, the teams used to play games against every other nation barring the team against which it has already played a game earlier in the tournament. But, this has not been the case in world T20 tournament. In 2007, the winners India didn't play matches against Sri Lanka, Australia and England in the super eights which would have shown their real talent. Similarly, in 2009 Pakistan didn't play games against India, South Africa and West Indies.

Such ifs and buts need to be eliminated in case the winner has to rejoice the victory and also the teams have to be given an optimum chance to correct its mistakes without shutting the doors permanently. Don't you think so???