The Sixth Round of the illustrious 2021 LV= County Championship came to a thrilling conclusion at grounds across England and Wales over the course of this past weekend, but which South African stars stood out from the crowd in this week’s round of games?

Well in order to answer that question, here are 3 players who I believe really stepped up to the plate this week and made their mark for their respective counties in the Sixth Round of the 2021 County Championship:

Simon Harmer (Essex)

No, your eyes do not deceive you folks, for a staggering fourth time in this series, the sensational Spin Wizard of the South East makes a well-deserved appearance.

Honestly, by this point, I’m struggling to find apt superlatives to correctly describe Harmer’s exploits in county cricket but for now, I’ll choose this one; remarkable.

In this week’s showdown between the defending champions and a struggling Derbyshire side, who unfortunately find themselves rooted firmly at the bottom of the Group 1 standings, Harmer displayed all of the characteristics that have made him such a potent threat in the county circuit ever since his Essex debut in 2017. He eclectically mixed a deadly combination of deceptive drift and masterfully executed flight on his way to taking exceptional career-best figures of 9/80 from his 25.5 overs in Derbyshire’s first innings.

As if this extraordinary first innings effort was not already enough for the imperious off-spinner, Harmer then proceeded to put the metaphorical icing on the cake in fine fashion during Derbyshire’s second innings, taking shrewd figures of 3/122 from his 45 overs, as the defending champions condemned their East Midlands counterparts to a crushing innings and 15 run defeat on the fourth and final day of play at the Cloud FM County Ground.

Whether or not extraordinary performances such as this one will land Harmer a place on the Proteas radar once more, is of course up for much debate, but at this point, I think it’s rather safe to say that he’s not doing his chances of a recall any harm, as long as he continues to carve through opposing batting line-ups with such clinical precision.

Kyle Abbott (Hampshire)

Talking of players who may be knocking down Mark Boucher’s door at the moment, former Proteas seamer Kyle Abbott had a rather memorable week of his own down at the Home of Cricket this week.

Alongside the likes of Mohammad Abbas, Keith Barker and Brad Wheal, Abbott scythed through the shell-shocked Middlesex batting line-up with almost militaristic precision, concocting a potent mix of pinpoint accurate in-swingers and skilfully executed out-swingers with a relentless barrage of short, sharp bouncers which resulted in the ever-reliable seamer taking excellent match figures of 11/85 from just 28 overs, during Hampshire’s emphatic 7 wicket victory over their southern rivals at Lord’s.

As is the case with Harmer, Kyle’s hopes of a potential Proteas recall remain very much in the balance but even if he doesn’t make a return to the international fold any time soon, I highly recommend that you keep a close eye on his exploits with Hampshire’s electrifying seam attack this season, trust me you will not be disappointed.

Stiaan van Zyl (Sussex)

Our final entrant in this week’s segment, unfortunately, didn’t get to play much cricket this week, as was the case with most cricketers around the country, seeing as half of the six games in the 6th Round ended in shortened draws due to the good old British weather, but whilst he was out in the middle, I must say that Stiaan was rather impressive for the Martlets in their heavily rain-affected showdown with Kent at the 1st Central County Ground in Hove.

After the loss of openers Tom Haines and Aaron Thomason during the first 16 overs of the innings, Sussex needed a firm anchor to steady the ship in their first innings and to his credit, van Zyl did exactly that, entrenching himself adeptly against the likes of Darren Stevens, Nathan Gilchrist and Matt Quinn and producing a free-flowing 52 from 83 deliveries alongside Travis Head and Tom Clark, to take the home side from 51/2 in the 16th over of their innings to a rather more promising score of 123/3 in the 34th over.

Unfortunately for Stiaan, this budding knock was brought to a somewhat abrupt halt at the end of the 35th over when the experienced number 3 batsman was trapped lbw by the aforementioned Gilchrist but considering that he was the only Sussex batsman to surpass the 50 run mark in this week’s encounter with Kent, I reckon that he will come away from the game somewhat content with his performance given the difficult batting conditions present on the south coast this week.

Photo: Twitter/@EssexCricket