Ireland v South Africa: Adair ‘reaping the dividends’ of his hard work, says Stirling

“It will be interesting to see how that professionalism in Ireland allows him to improve, how that maintains over the next couple of years and to see how high his ceiling is. There will be no shortage of where he could end up in the cricket match.”

It will be a landmark event for Stirling on Wednesday as the 34-year-old prepares to make his 400th international appearance.

“I’m extremely honored. I’m not one to look back, I’ll have plenty of time for that once my career is over, but I’m thrilled to have gotten this far.

“Four hundred is a big achievement, I’ll probably think about it for about 10 minutes and then it’ll be business as usual.”

Andrew Balbirnie has been ruled out of T20s but is returning for the one-day matches with Stirling saying the former skipper is “really excited about the challenge ahead”.

Ireland will be buoyed by Sunday’s victory as they prepare to face South Africa with the second ODI on Friday before the final match three days later.

“It’s a huge result for us and we can take a lot of confidence from it. Confidence is huge in cricket, you definitely transfer performances from previous matches into the next one.

“South Africa still have a lot in store, the players who have come for this ODI series are also very good so we will have to be at the top of our game to have a chance in the end.”