• Captain wants batsmen to ‘get bit between their teeth’ more often • Retains faith in Gary Ballance to come good at No3 in second Test

Joe Root admitted a small part of him is looking forward to greater challenges as the England captain, with the expectation South Africa will show their true colours when the Test series resumes in Nottingham on Friday.

Root enjoyed an ideal start to his Test captaincy at Lord’s last week, scoring 190 in the first innings before his side went on to wrap up a win by 211 runs inside four days. It has resulted in an unchanged team for Trent Bridge, where England have won six of their past seven Tests.

With Root’s impressive opposite number, Faf du Plessis, returning for South Africa after missing the Lord’s defeat for the birth of his first child, and having demanded a redoubling of his players’ efforts in training this week after criticising their failure to deliver the basics in London, his wish for a sterner contest against the world’s second-best team could well be granted.

Joe Root must solve team puzzle to secure lasting success for England Read more

Asked if he was prepared for tougher battles, Root said: “There is a little bit of me looking forward to that. I’m fully aware that last week was the perfect start and there will be plenty of challenges. It will be interesting to see when that happens. It might well be this week and we’ll have to see what that brings and how I cope with it.”

In the past two years England have won successive Tests on three occasions – most notably on their last appearance at Trent Bridge in 2015 when Stuart Broad’s eight for 15 helped them regain the Ashes – and Root believes that improving their consistency will come down to the batsmen “getting the bit between their teeth” more often.

Among them is Gary Ballance, whom Root tipped to deliver at No3 having personally endorsed his return to the side this summer for a third crack at Test cricket after watching the left-hander’s blistering start to the season for Yorkshire. Scores of 20 and 34 at Lord’s may not have leapt out of the scorebook but the captain was satisfied.

Root, who has moved to his preferred No4 spot on the back of Ballance’s return, said: “Gary looked very good and comfortable in the first innings until his dismissal and put pressure back on the bowlers on occasions. He will be desperate to make his opportunity count this week.

“I take a lot of responsibility in the selection of the squad. There were a number of guys who were discussed but it was hard to look past the runs he has scored and the way he has scored them this season.”

At 1-0 down South Africa have been forced to rejig their team. Kagiso Rabada is banned for racking up disciplinary points and will be replaced by the seamer Duanne Olivier while JP Duminy makes way in the middle order to allow the return of Du Plessis.

. South Africa’s captain was also mulling over whether to replace the batsman Theunis de Bruyn with the all-rounder Chris Morris to bolster his attack. Either way only four players of colour will be in the South Africa XI, representing a demonstration of the flexibility allowed by the transformation targets that were officially announced in April 2016 after previously going unspoken.

Under the system the national team must feature at least six players of colour, including two black South Africans. But this number is calculated by average over the course of a season and across all formats, meaning the short-term changes should be signed off by the South Africa board – especially with Rabada’s absence deemed “unforseen circumstances”.

“For me it was important to get [the quota system] out and make it public knowledge,” Du Plessis said. “Now we can play our game and get on with it. Within the team it has never been a challenge. We understand what to do, what to expect and what is best for our country.”

Du Plessis has spent the last few days to the second Test demanding his players improve on the basics after a meltdown at Lord’s in which three costly chances were missed and two wickets ruled out because they came off no-balls. He was also keen to stress their opponents remain vulnerable; England were reduced to 76 for four on the first morning but South Africa failed to capitalise.

He added: “It’s not been mentioned enough. There were times England found themselves under pressure. The disappointing thing was just how quickly they got out of it. Catches go down but it’s how you respond to them and we didn’t do that well enough. When they threw a punch back at us we just sat back and let it happen, expecting something to change and it never did and that is where we let the game slip.”

England Cook, Jennings, Ballance, Root (capt), Bairstow (wk), Stokes, Moeen, Dawson, Broad, Wood, Anderson.

South Africa (possible) Elgar, Kuhn, Amla, Du Plessis (capt), Bavuma, De Kock, Morris, Philander, Maharaj, Olivier, Morkel.