JOHANNESBURG, Apr 10:
Eight of South Africa’s top cricket stadiums, including Wanderers in Johannesburg, Durban’s Kingsmead and Newlands in Cape Town, have been confirmed as venues for the 2027 ICC ODI World Cup, a News24 report said on Wednesday.
The 2027 World Cup will be jointly hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia across October and November.
Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) chief executive officer, Pholetsi Moseki said the venues were decided keeping in mind the availability of hotel rooms and airport.
“The exercise (of choosing the venues) 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,” Moseki was quoted as saying by the South African website.
Moseki further stated that it was hard for them to leave out the three venues in Benoni, JB Marks Oval and Diamond Oval.
“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.”
While the main venues will be the Wanderers, Centurion Park in Pretoria, Kingsmead, St George’s Park in Gqeberha, Boland Park in Paarl and Newlands, the Mangaung Oval in Bloemfontein and Buffalo Park in East London will also host some fixtures, with other games being staged in tournament co-hosts Zimbabwe and Namibia.
Hosts South Africa and Zimbabwe have directly qualified for the tournament, but Namibia will have to go through the African qualifiers.
The top eight teams in the ICC ODI rankings gain direct qualification, while the remaining four spots will be determined through global qualifier tournaments.
The tournament will see two groups of seven teams each. The top three teams from each group will progress to the Super Six stage, leading to semi-finals and a final to determine the winners.
Teams will play each other once in the group stage, like in the 2003 World Cup. (PTI)
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