Stormont upgrade could deliver T20 World Cup matches
Cricket Ireland have confirmed a £1m investment to the Northern Ireland Civil Service Sports Association site in Belfast with the hope that the upgrades could deliver matches during the 2030 T20 World Cup.The package is part of a joint venture that will help deliver phase one of the NICSSA's Future Master Plan with the hope to transform the Stormont venue into a fit-for-purpose ground with permanent infrastructure including seating and broadcast facilities.Ireland beat Zimbabwe in the first Test to be staged at Stormont in July. "The NICSSA Sports Precinct is a fundamentally important venue for Irish cricket, it not only features one of our leading international grounds but provides crucial space for community and domestic representative cricket to take place," said Brian MacNeice, Chair of Cricket Ireland."The Stormont Cricket Ground holds a great fondness for Irish fans for the many international matches it has held over the years – most notably the Test match last year against Zimbabwe."Numerous reports over the years have highlighted that there is a lack of quality training and playing facilities on the island of Ireland. We now have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make major in-roads into resolving these issues."Also planned are five new hybrid pitches - three at Stormont and two in Lisburn - with high-quality indoor and outdoor training spaces to help broaden widen cricket participation numbers, while also providing training and match facilities for international and domestic cricket. The plans sit alongside the Cricket in Ireland Strategic Plan 2024–2027 and the Cricket Ireland Facilities Strategy, with additional expenditure pledged to support men's cricket this season in order to offset the European T20 Premier League's deferral to 2026."If you consider this project, the new stadium at Abbottstown and our direct support for facilities upgrade proposals at Bready and Malahide, we are demonstrating our resolve to tackle the facilities and infrastructure deficits in a substantial manner," added MacNeice.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
35 minutes ago
- Reuters
Jayasuriya decimates Bangladesh as Sri Lanka win by innings and 78 runs
June 28 (Reuters) - Spinner Prabath Jayasuriya led the charge with a five-wicket haul as Bangladesh collapsed for just 133 in their second innings, handing Sri Lanka a win by an innings and 78 runs, with the hosts clinching a 1-0 victory in their two-test series on Saturday. Bangladesh lost six wickets within 33 runs as their batters were unable to repeat the heroics that secured a draw in the first test in Galle on Colombo's spin-friendly track. "There was a difference between (the) two matches ... that's a good morale booster for us, losing the toss and putting the opposition under pressure," Sri Lanka captain Dhananjaya de Silva said at the post-match presentation ceremony. After Bangladesh posted 247 in their first innings, opener Pathum Nissanka scored 158 in a player-of-the-match performance, aided by Dinesh Chandimal (93) and Kusal Mendis (84) as Sri Lanka secured a commanding 211-run lead with a total of 458. Anamul Haque (19) tried to give Bangladesh a fast start in the second innings but fell to Asitha Fernando (1-22), while his opening partner Shadam Islam (12) mistimed a cover drive and got caught just three balls later as Jayasuriya (5-56) took his first wicket of the match. De Silva (2-13) trapped fellow skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto, who scored twin centuries in the first test, with a leg before wicket dismissal to leave the visitors reeling at 70-4. "Very disappointing after how we finished the first Test, the way this one went," Shanto said. "We had opportunities but... always took easy options and made mistakes while batting." Mushfiqur Rahim (26), Bangladesh's other centurion in the previous match, was the next to fall as he was bowled by Jayasuriya, kicking off a collapse where Bangladesh lost their last five wickets in less than 11 overs. Sri Lanka will play three One-Day Internationals and three Twenty20 matches against Bangladesh next month, with the first ODI set for Wednesday.
Belfast Telegraph
an hour ago
- Belfast Telegraph
‘The people of Armagh have been paying my rent this last year': Viral singer opens up on beating cancer and becoming music legend in GAA scene
They say a lot can happen in a year, and south Armagh man Paul Loughran is the perfect testament to that. From being diagnosed with testicular cancer, to writing his county's most prolific GAA anthem, and then travelling the world based on his band's viral sensations — Paul is the ideal example of optimism, hard work and resilience. He makes up one-third of local folk group Plenty in the Tank, whose song 'G Stands For Geezer' became the theme tune for Armagh GAA's run to only their second All-Ireland win in 2024. Named aptly after the manager of the senior men's Gaelic football team, Kieran McGeeney — aka 'Geezer' — the song hit number 20 in the official Irish Singles Chart last August following the final. The song now has well over two million streams on the music platform Spotify, and it's picking up even more traction, now that Armagh are in the quarter-finals of the championship this weekend. Paul wrote the song, which he says has completely changed his life, but just a few months previous, he had received another life-changing announcement. 'I was diagnosed with stage two bilateral testicular cancer in early November 2023, which means I had cancer on both sides, and I had surgeries at the end of November and then that January (2024),' the 29-year-old explained. 'I then had a full month of chemo and got the all-clear in March. I think I left the cancer centre on March 14th or 15th, and then I went back to gigging again on St Paddy's Day, just a few days later. 'I had a sort of serious turnaround. Like, especially coming out of that [cancer treatment], I had no money whatsoever. 'I spent all my savings on just being alive for that couple of months, basically, and paying my bills and stuff.' What the Belleeks clubman didn't then realise, was that just a short while later, his fellow Armagh GAA fans would be helping sort out his bills. 'G Stands For Geezer' was created just a few weeks before Armagh went up against Galway in the All-Ireland final last July, with Paul dedicating one day in his bedroom to writing it and to say it took off instantly would be an understatement. 'I posted it on TikTok on a Wednesday afternoon and a couple of hours later it had a quarter of a million views,' he added. 'It was one of the first TikTok videos I ever posted and the reaction was absolutely mental.' Paul is even more grateful to the Armagh team for actually winning the Sam Maguire after it all, as the entire whirlwind has opened up more opportunities than ever before for Plenty In The Tank. 'We got to go to New York there with the team for a Q&A thing, we got to play in Manhattan, which was unbelievable, and then we got to go out to Abu Dhabi and Dubai there for Paddy's week,' said Paul. 'So we've got to get out into the world and do gigs, in places we'd obviously never have been gigging in before, and better still, we're still getting gigs from it; the amount of weddings we've been booked for just for people around Armagh — we're flat out.' The song has been getting around 10,000 streams a day since its release last summer, and that's on average, levelled out. It has been picking up again since the championship started this year, and as Armagh continue to get closer to an elusive second consecutive Sam Maguire trophy, Paul said the views and listens are increasingly climbing. He continued: 'I remember we were celebrating with the boys [Armagh team] over in New York, and they were all like: 'this is mental, and thank you for writing that song' or whatever. 'And I was saying, 'no, thank you for winning!' 'Because it wouldn't have been anywhere near as big as it was if we just got beaten in the final].' Reflecting on the last 12 months — beating cancer, extensive success and having their band be forever etched in GAA history - Paul noted that 'it was honestly the best year of my life'. He has also been able to give back to those who helped him, with Plenty In The Tank raising £2,000 for two charities — Friends of the Cancer Centre and Musicians NI. 'And now, I've been running for six weeks. I've signed up for the Belfast Half Marathon to try and raise a bit more money for Friends of the Cancer Centre. So, I'm trying my best to give back to them,' he said. 'The people of Armagh are absolute legends. I'm sorry to offend, but they're the absolute best fan base in the world, out of any sport, in any country. 'Thanks an absolute million to anybody that ever streamed or clicked on any videos that had 'G Stands For Geezer' on it — because you are still paying my rent.'
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Rishabh Pant's car blew up and he stared death in the face, says surgeon who saved him
'Rishabh Pant was extremely lucky to be alive – extremely lucky.' Dr Dinshaw Pardiwala, the orthopaedic surgeon who treated the Indian cricket superstar after his car crash, is in no doubt about his fortune. 'To be in an accident like this, where the car actually overturns and blows up, the risk of death is extremely high.' On December 30, 2022, flamboyant wicketkeeper Pant – who made history by scoring two centuries in one Test against England at Headingley – drove from Delhi to his home town of Roorkee. At 5:30am, Pant lost control of his car on the Delhi-Dehradun highway. His vehicle skidded for 200 metres before hitting the road divider. While the Mercedes burned, Pant's right knee twisted at 90 degrees. 'My time in this world is over,' Pant thought to himself, he later said. He was just 25 years old – a year older than James Dean when he suffered his fatal car crash. But Pant and two passers-by broke open a window to allow him to escape before the car set on fire. Pant was hospitalised with major injuries to his head, back and feet. After a week in local hospitals, Pant was airlifted to Mumbai. 'When he first came in, he had a dislocated right knee,' Pardiwala recalls. 'He also had an injury to his right ankle, lots of other minor injuries all over. He had a lot of skin loss, so his entire skin from the nape of the neck down to his knees was completely scraped off in the process of that accident. Then getting out of the car – that broken glass scraped off a lot of the skin and the flesh from his back.' If Pant's first great fortune was to be alive, his second was that he still had his right leg at all. Injuries so grievous he could not brush his teeth for weeks 'When your knee dislocates, and all the ligaments break, there's a high possibility of the nerve or the main blood vessel also being injured,' Pardiwala explains. 'If the blood vessel gets injured, you typically have about four to six hours to restore the blood supply. Otherwise, there's a risk of losing your limb. The fact that his blood vessel wasn't injured despite having a severe high-velocity knee dislocation was extremely lucky.' When he met Pardiwala in Mumbai, Pant's first question was: 'Am I ever going to be able to play again?' His mother's first question to Pardiwala was simply: 'Is he ever going to be able to walk again?' ' We had a lengthy discussion about the fact that these are grievous injuries – we would need to reconstruct the entire knee,' Pardiwala recalls. 'Once we reconstruct the entire knee, we're going to have to then work through a whole process of letting it heal, letting it recover, then get back the basic functions – the range, the strength and the stability.' On January 6, 2023, two days after he arrived in Mumbai, Pant was put under general anaesthetic. Over the next four hours, Pardiwala performed surgery on his right knee, reconstructing three ligaments and repairing tendons and meniscus. For several weeks after the surgery, Pant's movement in his upper body – the area which had been far less affected than his legs – remained so debilitated that he could not brush his teeth without assistance. 'He lost a lot of skin, and so he couldn't really move his hands. They were completely swollen. He couldn't really move either of his hands initially.' It was weeks until Pant could even grip a glass safely to drink water without assistance. For four months after the accident, Pant could only walk with crutches. 'Typically, when we reconstruct these patients they are happy just to get back to normal life,' Pardiwala explains. 'If they can walk and do some minimal amount of recreational sports, they're happy.' But Pant's sights were altogether higher. Pardiwala 'really didn't know' whether Pant could play for India again. 'I said: 'We can certainly make sure that he walks again. I'm going to try my best to make sure that we can get him back to playing again.' 'We didn't really want to offer him too much initially, but we did want to give him hope. So I said: 'We'll break it down into steps.' Step one, of course, has to be the surgery. 'When we discussed it just after the surgery, the way I told him is the fact you're alive, the fact that your limbs survived – that's two miracles down. If we get you back to competitive cricket, that's going to be a third miracle. Let's just hope for everything, and then take it a step at a time. 'His question then was: 'OK, assuming that we do manage to get there, how long is it going to be?' I said: 'Probably looking at 18 months to get back to competitive cricket.'' After surgery, Pant remained in hospital for another 24 days until he was discharged. He remained in Mumbai for a further three weeks, staying in a hotel near the hospital. Then, Pant moved into accommodation by the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore, by the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. This would remain his home for most of 2023. Pant returned to the Academy gym virtually every day, doing two sessions with physiotherapists or strength and conditioning coaches. Initially, these sessions were two hours each; within weeks, at Pant's request, they extended to 3½ hours each. The regime was a combination of strenuous exercise in the gym and long sessions of aqua therapy in the swimming pool. The programme had three phases: restoring range of movement; strengthening muscles; and finally regaining balance and agility. 'His whole aim was 'Get me back to normalcy as fast as possible',' Pardiwala remembers. 'And we were trying to make sure that we were doing just the optimum, not too little, but not too much. 'His recovery was much faster than we had anticipated. He was like: 'Nothing is too much.' He pushed harder than normal people.' Pant defied prognosis by four months From the very first discussions that he had with Pardiwala in Mumbai, Pant made it clear that he intended not only to return to elite cricket, but also to regain his place behind the stumps. This aim made his recovery programme more onerous. 'As a wicketkeeper, you have to squat hundreds of times a day,' Pardiwala explains. 'So we needed to get that capability.' Pardiwala recalls a conversation between Ricky Ponting, who was then his head coach at Delhi Capitals, and Pant. Ponting suggested that Pant initially return as a specialist batsman alone. 'Rishabh turned around and said: 'No, there's no way that I'm getting back to elite-level cricket as just a batsman. I want to enjoy my keeping and so I'm not going to get back just as a batsman, I will get back when I can bat and when I can keep wicket too.'' Pardiwala had originally told Pant that the best scenario was to make a full return within 18 months. Yet he made his return in a warm-up within 14 months of the crash. In March 2024, 14 months and three weeks after the accident, Pant returned to professional cricket, in the Indian Premier League. Pant got an emotional standing ovation as he walked out to bat for the first time. Unassumingly, he regained his form from before the crash, averaging 40.5 in the 2024 IPL season and keeping wicket in every match, too. 'He was diving around like crazy,' Pardiwala recalls. When he made his Test return, against Bangladesh, Pant marked his comeback with a century. WELCOME BACK TO RED BALL CRICKET AFTER 21 LONG MONTHS, RISHABH PANT...!!! - A swashbuckling 34 ball fifty by Pant. — Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) September 7, 2024 While Pant, now 27, is as ebullient on the field as before his crash, he is a subtly different person off the field now. 'He recognises the fact that he was extremely lucky to be alive,' Pardiwala says. 'He's so motivated as a cricketer. 'If you knew the Rishabh before this happened, he's a much more mature human being. He's very philosophical now. He appreciates life and everything that goes around it. That typically happens to anyone who's faced death in the face. Someone who's had a near-death experience often gets life into perspective.' Pant's enforced break could ultimately mean that he plays more for India. Shane Warne's year-long absence from international cricket, for very different reasons – he was banned for a year for taking a banned diuretic – lengthened his own career. 'I'm sure he's going to be fitter now because he's realising the importance of it. A lot of athletes become much better after a big surgery than ever before. 'The difference is fitness levels. They were never exposed to those kinds of high levels of fitness and rehabilitation; even if they were exposed to it, they didn't understand the importance of it. 'He always worked at his fitness, I'm sure, but I think he worked more at his skills initially, and probably a little less at the fitness part of it. But now he realises the importance of fitness. So he's working out and making sure that all aspects of his body are strengthened enough. I think that gives him then the confidence to do what he does on the field.' So much confidence, indeed, that Pant celebrated the first of his twin centuries at Headingley with a hand spring: the same celebration that he used to mark a century in the IPL last month. The pyrotechnics reflect one of Pant's childhood loves. Rishabh Pant reaching 100 in the Rishabh Pant way 🔥6️⃣ "This fella is BOX OFFICE." 🍿 — Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) June 21, 2025 'Rishabh trained as a gymnast – and so although he looks large, he is quite agile, and he does have a lot of flexibility,' says Pardiwala. 'And that's why he's been doing those somersaults of late. 'It's a well-practised and perfected move – unnecessary though!' But not to a man with Pant's sense of theatre.
