ICC World Cup 2027 venues in South Africa revealed

The ICC World Cup 2027 will be hosted by the three countries in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. The tournament will be played in October and November and with the things panned out in the last World Cup, it promises to be even more exciting and enthralling.

It will be for the second time in history that South Africa and Zimbabwe will host the ICC World Cup, having done the same in 2003. However, it will be for the first time that Namibia has been given the opportunity to host the tournament, which will be 14 teams taking part for the first time since 2003.

Coming to the venues in South Africa, eight Stadiums have been confirmed to host the ICC World Cup 2027. Wanderers in Johannesburg, Centurion Park in Pretoria, Kingsmead in Durban, St George’s Park in Gqeberha, Boland Park in Paarl, and Newlands in Cape Town will be the prime venues.

Whereas Mangaung Oval in Bloemfontein and Buffalo Park in East London will also host some fixtures of the ICC World Cup. With venues in South Africa offering help for both batters as well as bowlers, it will be one of the best editions of the tournament to see. 

Cricket South Africa CEO, Pholetsi Moseki talked about the selection of venues, saying that along with venues they needed to look after the hotel rooms and the availability of an airport. Speaking to News 24, he explained: 

"The exercise [of choosing the grounds] was a scientific one and also included the number of hotel rooms and the availability of an airport. If there was disappointment, it was also tempered by the reality that was based on the venues that were chosen."

Cricket South Africa CEO, Pholetsi Moseki further stated that it was hard for them to leave out three venues in Benoni,  JB Marks Oval and Diamond Oval but they need to make some decisions after consideration. Talking about the challenges, he stated: 

"We do indeed have 11 ICC-accredited venues, so it was hard to leave out three, but a whole lot of things were taken into consideration. There’s also the important matter of training venues outside of the ones available at the venue.”

Qualification scenario for the ICC World Cup 2027

Hosts in South Africa and Zimbabwe have directly qualified for the ICC World Cup 2027. Whereas top 8 teams in the ICC ODI rankings will advance further to the tournament. The remaining four teams in the event will have to go through the qualifying stage to make their way into the tournament.

Namibia Netherlands, Scotland, UAE, USA, Nepal, and Oman are the teams that will be contending with each other in the World Cup L2. The teams will play 36 ODIs spread across nine triangular series, between now and December 2026. The top four teams from L2 will go to the qualifier, which will be a ten-team event. The top four teams from CWC L2 and the top four teams from the World Cup Qualifier Playoff will take part in that. Out of these ten teams, the top four advance to the World Cup.