Eight venues in South Africa have been confirmed as venues for the 2027 edition of the ICC Men's World Cup, as per a report by News24 South Africa. Wanderers in Johannesburg and the scenic Newlands in Cape Town lead the venue list for South Africa, who will be co-hosting the tournament alongside Zimbabwe and Namibia. Except Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa will qualify directly for the tournament as co-hosts alongside top eight sides as per ICC ODI rankings till the cut-off date.
The Wanderers, the Newlands, SuperSport Park in Centurion, Kingsmead in Durban, St George's Park in Gqeberha and Boland Park in Paarl will be the main venues for the tournament in the Rainbow Nation with the Mangaung Oval in Bloemfontein and Buffalo Park in East London to be the other venues. Pholetsi Moseki, the Cricket South Africa chief executive rued the fact that only eight venues out of 11 venues but mentioned that the availability of hotels near the stadiums and their proximity to the airports were some of the factors taken into consideration.
"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 in the report.
"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, Moseki added while explaining the exclusion of the venues in Benoni, JB Marks Oval, and Diamond Oval.
Namibia, the third co-host are part of the eight-team competition CWC L2, which runs for three years. Four top teams will qualify for the qualifiers and then if they finish in the top two, they will make it to the World Cup. Hence, there is a real possibility that a host would not participate in the tournament.
