All these mediocre South African kolpaks shouldn't be allowed to play in the County Championship. Guys like Sangakkara and Chanderpaul are still run machines and Abbott arguably one of the best bowlers in the world.
Don't see what Vilas, van Zyl, Harmer etc are adding to the championship
Totally agree, why is Vilas any better than promoting one of the Lancs production line of Batsmen. They do love a Kolpak though! Same goes for Smit at Derbyshire, I have no idea what he's doing getting a Kolpak gig!
In defence of Essex & Harmer, they essentially didn't have a spinner (Zaidi & Nijjar don't count!) so seems like a decent route to go down, only other way would have been to try and lure another county's second spinner there on loan (Kerrigan, Rafiq, Crane, Bess, Riley etc)