Probably because one cricket World Cup this year wasn't enough, the ICC decided to stage a second with the "World 20/20" in South Africa. A review from the first round, for those too busy with the RWC to pay attention to the cricket.

Group A
The tournament began spectacularly... for the first 15 overs at least. While I have been cynical in the past about the sort of strokeplay batsmen can succeed with in Twenty20s, there was very little to complain about while Chris Gayle was flogging South Africa. Not too many wild hoicks and swipes here - just Gayle's standard power, timing and a bit more aggression as he murdered the Saffer bowling to smash the first ever T20 international hundred - 117 in 57 balls with ten huge sixes.

Unfortunately for the Windies, they disintegrated once he fell, with some disgraceful swipes and slogs replacing Gayle's explosive strokeplay and wound up well below what they looked capable of - and more concerningly, below anything near a solid target. Herschelle Gibbs matched Gayle's strokeplay and with some increasingly ragged bowling that would make Andre Adams look like Glenn McGrath and some dismal fielding helping, South Africa chased down the 205 with a couple of overs to spare.

West Indies produced a similar performance against Bangladesh - well, in the field and with the ball. With the bat they barely even got going, especially as Gayle fell in the first over. From there it was a slaughter: not enough runs on the board, and Aftab Ahmed and Mohammad Ashraful taking apart the West Indian attack (I use that term very loosely) to win convincingly and knock out a side who on paper could have made a very strong case. South Africa beat Bangladesh with ease in the final group game as all of Bangladesh's weaknesses came to the fore - thoughtless, manic slogging that got them off to a flier while losing too many wickets, and a bowling attack that was disciplined but lacked real containing or strike power in fairly unhelpful conditions conceding the runs easily.

Group B
Australia began the tournament far too overconfidently. Gilchrist, Hayden and Ponting came at a disciplined Zimbabwean attack with no thought and only expectations of piling on a huge score. Instead, with some smart bowling and sharp fielding in helpful conditions, Australia found themselves being strangled - 19/3 in the fourth over with the top three dismissed trying to hit the ball into another time zone, and eventually making only 138/9. This didn't turn out to be enough, with Brett Lee spraying it about in his first spell and giving Zimbabwe a good start, and Brendon Taylor producing a superb, coolheaded knock (to follow a top keeping display) to take down the Aussie target in the rain. Yes - Zimbabwe beat Australia by five wickets with a ball to spare, suddenly opening up the possibility that Australia could be knocked out in the first round.
England's Twenty20 experience in their old hands saw them beat Zimbabwe the next day, with Kevin Pietersen reverse sweeping his way to a quickfire 79 in spite of some fairly disciplined bowling. The Zimboks had 189 to chase - 50 more than Australia gave them, but they fell short by that number despite a good start. England's tactics of taking the pace off the ball worked with the returning Chris Schofield, Paul Collingwood and Dmitri Mascarenhas strangling Zimbabwe to 138. Spurred on, Pietersen commented that England had the opportunity to humiliate Australia, which led to the expected result.
A fired up, humiliated Australia against an England that suddenly had something to prove after Pietersen's sledges. As one sided as you would expect. With the exception of Symonds' filthy pie throwing (treated with appropriate contempt by Flintoff and Owais Shah), the Australian bowling was excellent as Bracken, Clark and Johnson picked wickets up at regular intervals, kept the runs down and bowled England out for 135 - a total chased down with ease (and more than 5 overs to spare) once Hayden and Gilchrist had torn apart the bowling.

Group C
Kenya just weren't in the class of the other two teams: New Zealand blasted through them with Bond and Gillespie destroying the top order (who were reeling at 1/4 at one stage), and chasing down a paltry 73 with ease. Sri Lanka went the other way: they batted first, Jayasuriya, Jayawardene and newcomer Jehan Mubarak demolished a weak, ineffective attack to the tune of 260/6, a total Kenya would never get near.
The Sri Lanka/New Zealand clash was the only game of any real interest in this group, and Sri Lanka fired on all cylinders here. The fielding and bowling were both sharp as New Zealand lost early wickets and were restricted to 164, despite some fine strokeplay from Ross Taylor and Jacob Oram. Sri Lanka responded by destroying Shane Bond's bowling from the start, as he bled 35 runs in his first 3 over spell. Once Jayasuriya had done the damage, Sri Lanka cantered home with ease (and with Jayawardene showing alarmingly good form in his cameo at the end as well).

Group D
Scotland couldn't emulate Ireland as they were beaten fairly comprehensively by a Pakistan side missing key players to a mix of poor selection, ICL contract signings, and Shoaib Akhtar's wonderful interpersonal skills. Key highlights were Shahid Afridi's 22 in 5 minutes (scoring sequence 6-4-6-3-2-1-out) and Umar Gul's 4/25 as Scotland never came close to the 171 set.
After India/Scotland was washed out, India came into the clash with Pakistan needing to win or lose with a superior net run rate to Scotland to qualify for the next stage. Mohammad Asif produced the spell of the tournament, taking 4/18 with some stellar seam and swing bowling as India crumbled to 36/4 in the 7th over - a seemingly no-win position. Cameos from MS Dhoni and Irfan Pathan followed Robin Uthappa's 50 though and took India to 141. Pakistan were restricted, a miracle in itself given the presence of RP Singh, Sreesanth and the eminently hittable Agarkar in the Indian bowling - but eventually broke loose in the last few overs, needing 42 in 18 balls, and tied scores. At which point the ICC's latest brainfart kicked in - a bowl out that saw nominated bowlers lining up and hitting the stumps. Or in the case of Pakistan's nominations, trying to, as India won 3-0 in a farcical finish. It was amusing though to see that Robin Uthappa - a man who has bowled exactly 150 balls in his first class and one day career until now - was preferred ahead of Agarkar in the bowl out.

So what's next
The qualifiers break into two more groups of 4 teams - India, New Zealand, England and South Africa in one, Pakistan, Australia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in the other with another set of round-robin games, before the knockouts among the top 4.

Players to watch
Mahela Jayawardene and Sanath Jayasuriya have been in stunning form for Sri Lanka so far, averaging 100 and 74.5 respectively (with strike rates of 222 and 169). The Australian top order's looking dangerous once more after that wakeup call against Zimbabwe, and Shahid Afridi and Kevin Pietersen are the obvious big hitters to follow.
On the bowling front, Shane Bond and Mohammed Asif could very well be match winners with the new ball, while Nathan Bracken and Harbhajan Singh have been handy in the later overs. And keep an eye on the game when Ajit Agarkar's bowling for the opposite reasons. If recent form against England and Pakistan is any indication, there'll be plenty of opportunity for big hits and lots of runs while he's serving up his usual rubbish.