Blackpool's Richard Gleeson among ECB's 55-man training squad

Gleeson is joined in the group by county colleagues James Anderson, Jos Buttler, Saqib Mahmood, Matt Parkinson, Keaton Jennings and Liam Livingstone.

The expanded group will not be brought together in one place, with individual sessions at a host of county venues the only form of training currently approved, and does not represent an official England squad.

Format-specific squads will be named at a later date, starting with Test cricket.

Hopes are high that the delayed three-match series against the West Indies will go ahead in July.

Should the rest of the calendar fall into place – including a full Pakistan tour and limited-overs matches against Australia and Ireland – a wide pool of players will be required to stage matches in close succession while still offering the right amount of travel, training and rest time.

Gleeson is one of 14 uncapped players chosen along with Dan Lawrence, James Bracey, Phil Salt, Jamie Overton, Henry Brookes, Brydon Carse, Amar Virdi, Laurie Evans, Will Jacks, Ollie Robinson, Sam Hain, Tom Helm and Tom Kohler-Cadmore.

ECB performance director Mo Bobat, who joined the selectors and the head coach Chris Silverwood in putting together the list, explained: “It’s really pleasing to be in a position to have players returning to training and a huge amount of work has been done by many to get us this far.

“The pool of players will give selectors strong options when it comes to selecting squads across formats further down the line, as we move closer to our aim of playing international cricket this summer.

“We will need to continue to work closely with our medical team and government to ensure that our return to training and play activities are in line with best practice guidelines."