It has long been expected of Anderson, but Root has now emerged as a senior player in his own right after 12 months full of runs in all forms of the game.

Four years ago, Root was identified by Graham Thorpe as the most promising batsman of his generation and he is living up to that billing with more than 2,000 Test runs.“Obviously it's not going to work every time and you do have to be flexible but I'm in decent nick at the moment,” Root added on his ECB.co.uk blog.