I'll be absolutely straight up about this: It's taken me so long to set up this page that I've now got no time to put anything in it before pressing "launch." So here's what Mike Selvey wrote about Root for today's Big Paper: Then Root appeared, a slightly diffident figure, and the ground erupted. Standing ovations generally are for greater achievement than the ability to walk from a dressing room to the middle but this was special. Were this a T20 match they would be playing Mark Knopfler's theme music from Local Hero. With the acclaim comes expectation. A part of the move to sell tickets for the match, a struggle for Yorkshire, was predicated on the presence of Root in particular, for what would be his international debut on his home soil. McCullum heaped on the pressure: four slips, two gullies, and a volley of lip. Such things are sent to test temperament and technique in equal measure but in this Root was flawless. He plays late, drives with a bent front knee and a checked stroke, and pulls nicely. When Williamson was expected to fill in some overs until the new ball, Root responded by taking himself through the 70s to his highest Test score by clipping three successive boundaries, the third of them reverse swept. That takes nerve and youthful exuberance. Now the debate will crank up. This is England's last Test before the-series-that-cannot-be-named and while Ashley Giles takes the one-day side through the Champions Trophy, Andy Flower will be planning his strategies. Kevin Pietersen seems certain to return and the clamour for Root - always destined to open one day - to move up to partner Cook will intensify. Despite his steadfastness in India and twin centuries in New Zealand, Compton is not making the strongest of cases for himself and will have watched Root and Bairstow with mixed feelings. The figures are stacking up against him.