Sports Desk. The ICC has released the full schedule of the Men's ODI World Cup to be jointly hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia in 2027. This time the format of the tournament will be different from the previous editions. A total of 14 teams will vie for the title and the competition will proceed in three phases before the semi-finals. The tournament will begin with a three-team Super Series to be held in Namibia on 2 October 2027, while the final will be played in Johannesburg on 21 November.
Super Series match will be held first
The three lowest ranked teams that made it to the World Cup will first play in the Super Series. These teams will be finishing second, third and fourth in the qualifiers. All three teams will face each other on a round robin basis and the top team will make it to the main group stage.
The Super Series matches will be played in Windhoek on 2, 4 and 6 October.
There will be group stage of 12 teams
After the Super Series, 12 teams will be divided into two groups. There will be six teams in each group and all the teams will play one match each against the remaining five teams of their group.
Group A: India, Australia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and Qualifier-A
Group-B: New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, England, Bangladesh and Qualifier-B
The group stage matches will be held from October 7 to October 24, 2027. India will start its campaign against Australia on October 7, while the India-Pakistan match will be played on October 10 in Johannesburg.
This is how the seventh team will reach Super 7
After the group stage, the top 3 teams of both the groups will directly enter the Super 7. In this way six places will be decided. For the seventh place, the performance of the teams finishing fourth in both the groups will be compared. The team performing better in both will make it to Super 7.
That is, it will not be enough for a team to just finish fourth in its group, but it will also have to make a better record than the fourth-placed team of the other group.
Each team will play six matches in Super 7.
The Super 7 phase will run from 25 October to 14 November 2027. In this, all seven teams will play one match each against each other in round robin format. In this way each team will have to play a total of six matches. The special thing is that the points of Group Stage will not be carried forward in Super 7.
The top four placed teams in Super 7 will advance to the semi-finals. The first place team will face the fourth place team and the second place team will face the third place team.
Semi-finals on 17 and 18 November, final on 21 November
The first semi-final will be played on 17 November in Cape Town and the second semi-final on 18 November in Tshwane. After this, the title match will be held on 21 November at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg. A reserve day has also been kept for the semi-finals and final.
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