Time was when a fire alarm in Belfast would send everyone who heard it scurrying for safety. Happily, we no longer have to worry about "The Troubles", the low-level civil war between Irish unionists and nationalists that smouldered from the late 1960s until the Good Friday Agreement was signed in April 1998.
SOUTH AFRICA TOUR OF IRELAND, 2021
No alarm as South Africa eye another series win
The biggest challenge for Ireland will be to find a way to counter the South African bowling. © AFP
So when beeps and recorded verbal warnings cut through the usual burble of questions and answers three minutes into Aiden Markram's online press conference at South Africa's hotel in Belfast on Wednesday, nobody moved. Besides, there was a clue in what the canned voice kept saying: "Please ignore all alarms." No, that's not an Irish joke.
Maybe it takes more than that to light a fire under a team that is one win away from being able to declare the past five weeks a resounding success. Having won both Tests and three of their five T20Is against West Indies in St Lucia and Grenada, South Africa shared their ODI series at Malahide in Dublin - where they won the first T20I on Monday. Another victory at Stormont in Belfast on Thursday and the rubber will be theirs regardless of what happens in the last game on Saturday. Already, those are good numbers for a side that went on tour having lost seven of their previous 10 matches across the formats.
The way
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