Cricket World Cup 2027 Format Explained: Super Series, Super 7 and the Road to the Final

The ICC released the full schedule for the 2027 Men's Cricket World Cup on 1 October 2026, a year and a day before the first match. South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia will stage 57 matches between 2 October and 21 November 2027. It is the 14th edition of the tournament, and the first men's ODI World Cup in Africa since South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya hosted in 2003.

It also has the most layered format the World Cup has used: a preliminary Super Series, a Group Stage of two groups of six, and a brand-new Super 7 in which nobody carries points forward. Here is how each stage works, who is already in, and what it all means for India. If you just want dates, the full fixture list has all 57 matches.

The 2027 World Cup was always going to have 14 teams. Under the model the ICC approved in 2021, all 14 would have been split into two groups of seven, followed by a Super Six. In July 2026 the ICC replaced that with the current structure. The key difference is that only 12 teams now reach the Group Stage: the other two are knocked out in the Super Series before the main event begins.

The change has its critics. Two of the four teams that come through the Qualifier will play only two World Cup matches before going home, and Associate nations publicly criticised the revamp when it was announced.

Ten teams are already in. South Africa and Zimbabwe qualified as hosts. The other eight are the top eight on the ICC Men's ODI Team Rankings at the 30 September 2026 cut-off: India, Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, England and Bangladesh.

The last four places go through a 10-team Cricket World Cup Qualifier in early 2027. Its field is the two lowest-ranked Full Members other than the hosts, the top four from CWC League 2 and the top four from a Qualifier Play-off. The venue has not been confirmed; ESPNcricinfo reports it is likely to be South Africa or Namibia. The Qualifier winner goes straight into the Group Stage. The teams finishing second, third and fourth go to the Super Series.

With the top eight settled, those two Full Members are West Indies and Ireland. So West Indies, champions in 1975 and 1979, must come through the Qualifier, having also missed the 2023 World Cup. And Namibia, despite co-hosting, has no automatic place: only South Africa and Zimbabwe received host spots.

The World Cup opens not with a famous fixture but with three teams that will only be known after the Qualifier. They play each other once at the Namibia Cricket Ground in Windhoek, listed by the ICC as QF1, QF2 and QF3:

• Saturday 2 October: QF1 v QF3
• Monday 4 October: QF1 v QF2
• Wednesday 6 October: QF2 v QF3

Each team plays twice. The winner takes the twelfth and final Group Stage place; the other two are out. Windhoek then stages three Group B matches, two of them involving England, the last being England v Sri Lanka on 13 October.

Each team plays the other five in its group once, 30 matches in all. The top three in each group go through, and so does the better of the two fourth-placed teams, making seven. Qualifier A and Qualifier B are the two places decided through qualifying.

It starts with a heavyweight. Australia, the defending champions, play India at Newlands in Cape Town on Thursday 7 October, a rematch of the 2023 final. Co-hosts South Africa open against New Zealand at Newlands on 9 October, the same day Zimbabwe start against Qualifier A in Bulawayo. India v Pakistan follows on Sunday 10 October at the Wanderers.

The travel is uneven. Zimbabwe play all five group games at home, in Bulawayo, Harare and Victoria Falls, and South Africa play all of theirs in South Africa. England's group games take them to all three host countries: Windhoek, Gqeberha and Harare. The Group Stage ends on 24 October with Zimbabwe v India, the first World Cup match at the new Mosi-oa-Tunya Stadium in Victoria Falls.

This is the new part. The seven qualifiers start again on zero points: nothing carries over from the groups. Each team plays the other six once, 21 matches in all, and the top four reach the semi-finals.

So that fans can plan travel before the groups are decided, the ICC has fixed seven Super 7 slots in advance and pre-seeded a team into each:

A slot is a label, not a finishing position. If India qualify, they are A1 whether they top Group A or finish third, and the slot decides their fixtures and venues. If a seeded team is knocked out, the team that qualifies in its place inherits its slot. The ICC's own example: if Bangladesh qualify and Sri Lanka do not, Bangladesh become B3 and play Australia (A2) in Johannesburg on 25 October.

After the Super 7, the table leader plays the fourth-placed team and second plays third. The semi-finals are at Newlands on Wednesday 17 November and at SuperSport Park in Centurion (Tshwane) on Thursday 18 November, and both have a reserve day. The final is at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on Sunday 21 November, with Monday 22 November in reserve. The Wanderers also staged the 2003 final.

India's group games take them to Cape Town, Johannesburg, Tshwane, Bloemfontein and Victoria Falls, and never to Namibia. The gaps between them are three, four, three and seven days. Every India match, in the groups and in their A1 Super 7 slot, falls on a Thursday or a Sunday.

For the full picture, venue by venue, read India's road to the 2027 World Cup final. Every other team has its own guide below, and you can share any team's fixtures as an image from the hub.

The ICC has not announced start times yet. All three host countries are on UTC+2, three and a half hours behind India Standard Time. As an example, a 10:00 local start would be 13:30 IST, and a 14:00 local start would be 17:30 IST. We will add the confirmed times to the schedule and to our calendar feeds as soon as they are published.

Tickets go through an ICC ballot that opened on 1 October 2026. The ICC says prices range from USD 9.62 (R158) for entry-level tickets to USD 31.31 (R514) for the highest-tier matches. See the tickets section of our hub for the details and the official links.