Joe Root wants more of Yorkshire's stars to contend for England spot

Test skipper Root, fresh from his hundred in Yorkshire’s victory at Kent, is available again as Steve Patterson’s men face Sussex at Hove, which begins on Thursday.

Adam Lyth also added a second-innings ton, to go with his 97 in the first dig, and goes into the match as the leading run scorer in the division with 380 in his two games so far.

And Root said: “The more guys who are putting their hands up and making big scores, wherever it is in the order, are gains for the England team.

“We want that competition for places and people to be churning out big hundreds.

“It’s something I’ve spoken quite a lot about recently.

“If we’re going to develop as a Test team and consistently go out and get 450 – big first-innings runs – guys need to be doing it in first-class cricket.

“That’s not necessarily because conditions mirror what you get in a Test Match, but the mentality is so important.

“That’s being able to bat long periods of time, being able to go up and down the gears if someone bowls a good spell at you – managing your innings and going through that five or six hours it takes to go and get a hundred.”

Root is being allowed to play for his county in preparation for the summer’s Test series against New Zealand, which gets underway in early June.

“I’ve changed a few things technically over the last six months, and I haven’t had the opportunity to face a lot of seam against it,” the Sheffield-born batsman added.

“I obviously faced a high volume of spin this winter and felt I played quite nicely in those conditions.

“But this is a good opportunity to bed that technique in and feel really comfortable with it ahead of an important 12 months of cricket.

“To get some time in the middle was really valuable from that side of things.

“But, while you can look down the line towards Test matches and stuff when coming back to county cricket, you just want to win games.”