Offspinner Simon Harmer briefly made it for South Africa, then switched tracks to county cricket, and later, more than a dozen years after his first five Tests, made it back into the Test side of his country of birth.

Harmer made his first-class debut for Eastern Province in 2009-10 and was soon promoted to the franchise team at Warriors. Two seasons later he topped the first-class competition bowling charts with 44 wickets at 31.75 for Warriors but could not stake a claim for higher honours, with Paul Harris in the national side. During this time he was an A-team regular, and added capable lower-order batting to his repertoire, with a first-class hundred and several fifties.

When the South African attitude towards spin changed in the mid-2010s, Harmer came into contention - though as second to Dane Piedt, who he was also second to on the wicket-takers' list for the 2013-14 domestic season. Harmer eventually found his way into the Test side when Piedt was injured during the home series against West Indies the following season, and he took seven wickets in his debut match, the New Year's Test of 2015. He was on the Bangladesh tour later that year, and took five wickets apiece in his two Tests in India later in 2015.

That seemed to be it for his international career, though, when in the period after, he struggled to even make it into the South Africa A side. That moved him to sign a Kolpak deal with Essex, where he immediately made an impression, taking 72 wickets at under 20 each in the county's run to their first Championship title in 25 years. Though they failed to defend their title in 2018, Harmer excelled again, with 57 wickets, and the following season he helped the county secure a second Championship in three years, and their first T20 Blast success, leading from the front with a seven-wicket haul on Finals Day before hitting the winning runs.

In 2022, Harmer received a surprise call-up for South Africa and played in the extraordinary two-Test home series against Bangladesh where South Africa used two spinners - Keshav Maharaj was the other - and they took 29 of the 40 wickets to fall, bowling unchanged in two of the four innings.