‘More than a billion will be watching’: SA, Zimbabwe, Namibia to host ICC Cricket World Cup

South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe will jointly host the 2027 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup. 

The 14th edition of the tournament makes a much-anticipated return to Africa after 24 years, with fixtures played at 12 venues across three nations.

Qondisa Ngwenya, CEO of the Cricket World Cup Local Organising Committee, explained that the trio of Southern African nations are befitting hosts.

“We are doing very well on the infrastructure side; we are fortunate across the three countries that we don’t have to build facilities from scratch except for one in Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. So, that really takes us forward.”

“We need to deliver an entertaining tournament; it needs to be a cricket spectacle for the people in the stadiums, the people around the world that are consuming it… There are over a billion people who are going to be watching this.”

Ngwenya said that one of the key challenges for the organisers has been making the tournament accessible to the citizens of the respective countries.

To achieve this, they are looking at introducing a ticketing programme that includes protected segments within each stadium, which will allow for communities within the vicinity of where the match is taking place to have equal access.

“We want to make sure that the people have access to the tournament,” he said.

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