The International Cricket Council has given the green light to a significantly restructured ICC ODI World Cup 2027 format, replacing the tournament’s familiar group-and-knockout template with a three-stage system built around two newly created phases: the Super Series and the Super 7. The decision was finalised at the ICC Board’s annual meeting in Edinburgh, where members signed off on recommendations put forward by the Chief Executives’ Committee.
The governing body said the redesign is meant to make each fixture carry more weight, sharpen competitive balance among the 14 participating sides, and keep the tournament engaging from the opening game to the final. The 2027 edition, to be co-hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, will be the first World Cup played under this new blueprint.
How the New ODI World Cup 2027 Format Works
Under the revised structure, the three lowest-ranked qualified teams will open proceedings in the Super Series, a round-robin mini-league in which only the top finisher earns a place in the main draw. That team then joins the remaining 11 already-qualified nations, and all 12 are split into two groups of six for a single round-robin group stage. The top three sides from each group progress automatically, while the seventh and final berth in the next round goes to the best-performing team outside those six qualifiers, calculated across both groups. This funnels the field down to seven teams for the tournament’s next stage.
Those seven sides then enter the Super 7 round, playing every other team once. The four teams finishing highest in the standings advance to the semifinals, with the format placing the top-ranked side against the fourth-placed team and pitting the second- and third-placed sides against each other. The two semifinal winners meet in the final.
ICC officials say the layout rewards consistency across the tournament rather than allowing a team to coast into the knockouts, since every result in the Super 7 phase directly affects seeding for the semifinals. The board added that the changes preserve a route for associate and emerging cricketing nations to test themselves against the sport’s top sides, even as the overall structure becomes more demanding.
T20 World Cup and Future Qualification Pathways Also Revamped
Alongside the ODI overhaul, the ICC Board approved a parallel set of changes to the Men’s T20 World Cup, which will keep its 20-team lineup but shift from four groups of five to five groups of four. The top two from each group will move into a new Super 10 stage — replacing the earlier Super Eight — arranged as two groups of five, with each group winner going straight through to the semifinals.
A newly added Eliminator round will decide the remaining semifinal places: the second-placed side from one Super 10 group will face the third-placed side from the other, and the two winners will complete the semifinal lineup. The ICC linked this redesign to the standard of performances shown by emerging teams during the 2026 T20 World Cup, saying it should sharpen intensity through the closing rounds of the group phase.
The board also gave conditional backing to a new 16-team global event reserved for Associate Member nations, expected to be staged ahead of future T20 World Cups, though this still needs sign-off from the ICC’s Finance and Commercial Affairs Committee later this year. Separately, the qualification path for the 2028 T20 World Cup was confirmed, with Scotland entering the Europe Regional Final directly, several 2026 participants advancing straight to the Global Qualifier, and the rest of the field decided through regional qualifying events across Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas and East Asia-Pacific.