Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], September 30 (ANI): The International Cricket Council (ICC) will unveil the schedule for the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2027 in Cape Town on Thursday. 

It will mark the one-year countdown to the tournament, which will commence on October 2, 2027, with the final scheduled for Sunday, November 21, 2027. The event will also see the opening of the ticket ballot for fans, as per a press release.  Ten of the 14 teams participating in the tournament will have secured their spots by the September 30 qualification cut-off, with hosts South Africa and Zimbabwe earning automatic berths and eight teams qualifying based on the ICC ODI rankings.

India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Australia, England, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are set to join the two hosts, while the remaining four spots will be decided through the Qualifiers, scheduled to take place early next year. Two-time champions West Indies will also have to go through the qualification route to secure their spot at next year's marquee event. India's stalwarts Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, who are gunning for what is likely to be their last ICC Men's Cricket World Cup, have their eyes firmly set on bringing their respective journeys in the quadrennial tournament to a fitting end with a trophy. 

Speaking to JioStar at the start of India's new home season, Rohit Sharma, who led India to ICC Men's T20 World Cup glory in 2024 in the West Indies and the United States, expressed his desire to relive that feeling of lifting the trophy, while Virat Kohli, who got his hands on the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup trophy 15 years ago, is ready to give his all to win the title again for India. 'It'll be great to win the upcoming ODI World Cup. I wouldn't think about full circle and all that now. Winning a World Cup for India is a special feeling. I have experienced that twice in the T20 format. In 2007, I was just a young kid of 20 years. Of course, it's a big tournament; you've won a World Cup in your first year, it's great. Then we won the Champions Trophy in 2013, and after that there was a long period, almost 11 years, where we couldn't win an ICC title. So that's why, when we won the T20 World Cup in 2024, there was a realisation of how important it was," Rohit Sharma said. 

"So that feeling is still inside to a great extent. I know what winning a World Cup feels like. So that's why I want that feeling back. The fun we had, you can't describe what that feeling is, because you can't match that. That's why winning that World Cup is very important to me, because I want to have that feeling again, which we felt recently,' he added. 

Virat Kohli told JioStar said his goal is to win as many games as he can for the team. 'I'm not in a place where I feel like, if it didn't happen earlier, I have to do it now. But for me, it's the last World Cup I'm going to play for India. And that is my motivation. Like, to leave everything out there. And of course, the goal is absolutely to win the World Cup. And whatever it takes, I'm absolutely ready. My goal is to win as many games as I can for the team, and my dream is to play a match-winning knock in the finals while chasing a score; that would be ideal. If it happens, great," he said. 

"If it doesn't happen and we win the World Cup, I'll be just as happy because, eventually, you understand that, as much as that competitive nature is there, it's the last time you're getting to play in a World Cup. So, winning that trophy is the most important thing,' Virat Kohli added.  (ANI)