T20: Ireland bidding to draw level with South Africa at Stormont
Ireland are in action at Stormont this afternoon (Thursday) for their second T20 match against South Africa.
The hosts are bidding to level the series after losing the opener at Malahide.
Holywood all-rounder Mark Adair has fond memories of playing in Belfast - and he was looking forward to playing in front of fans there.
He said: “I've grown up playing around Stormont, I remember even helping out the groundsman with the covers when I was young. In fact, my first live game of cricket was Ireland v England at Stormont where I was helping to pull the covers - so it will be nice to be back playing there again.”
And he added: "It's been great to be back playing in front of crowds too. When Bal Andrew Balbirnie got his hundred the other day you saw the entire ground stand up for him. I don't want to say it was emotional, but you got that tingling feeling once more.
"It gives us hope that in the not-too-distant future when teams like this come over we'll once again see big crowds - and hopefully we’ll put in a performance against them.”
“T20 cricket can be a complicated game at times, but from game one we know that if we just closed out their innings better, and started ours a bit better, we could have been looking at 150 plays 150. We just need to simplify our game plan - I don’t think we need to do anything too differently, we just need to be aware of how we go about executing our plans and getting people within the team involved.”
The second T20 International between Ireland Men and South Africa Men begins later at 4pm, with South Africa leading 1-0 in the three match series.