Michael Vaughan’s long-held ambition to finish his career on an Ashes high has never looked more unlikely after he was left out of England’s 16-man pre-Ashes training camp announced by the England selectors yesterday.

There was no place for Vaughan in either an enlarged training squad, which will meet at the National Performance Centre in Loughborough towards the end of this week for general strategising and bonding, or in the Lions team to face Australia in a four-day match at Worcester starting on July 1.

He must decide whether to continue to plough what has become something of a desperate furrow for Yorkshire, for whom he has averaged 21 in five LV County Championship games, or whether to bring an early end to an outstanding career.

The smoke signals emanating out of Sheffield last night were that he intends to play on, hoping publicly for a return to form and privately for injury and / or loss of form to befall those in possession.

If Vaughan’s international future looks all but over, then the door has been left slightly ajar for another hero of the 2005 Ashes series, Stephen Harmison. Like Vaughan, the fast bowler has been omitted from the training squad but the selectors have taken note of his improved form for Durham and have picked him in a strong Lions team under the captaincy of another Ashes winner, Ian Bell.

Amid this speculation, the selectors gave the clearest hint yet of their plans for the first npower Ashes Test in Cardiff when they named 11 players to take on Warwickshire in a three-day warm-up match, also starting on July 1. Andrew Flintoff, fit again after two championship matches for Lancashire if not yet in pristine batting form, returns to the team.

The only semblance of a surprise in the XI to take on Warwickshire is the selection of Monty Panesar as a second spinner to partner Graeme Swann. Does this mean that England will play two spinners in Cardiff? Geoff Miller, the national selector, was quick to dampen that speculation, saying that the team for the first Ashes Test will not necessarily include two spinners and that “an extra seam bowler remains an option”. Flintoff, whose workload depends largely on the presence or otherwise of a fourth seam bowler, will hope Miller is as good as his word.

Even if England do play two spinners, it should not be assumed that Panesar will automatically play ahead of Adil Rashid, who has been picked in the training squad and who Miller described yesterday as “maturing all the time”. Panesar has been bowling modestly for Northamptonshire, including during the last championship game against Glamorgan in Cardiff, where his match figures were two for 149. Rather than presaging his return to the team against Australia, his selection against Warwickshire is more likely to give Andy Flower, the team director, an opportunity to assess his form at close range.

Although England have picked three spinners in the training squad, there is room for only one wicketkeeper, Matt Prior, who returns having spent the past two weeks reading daily encomiums about James Foster’s glovework. Now it is Foster’s turn to rejoin the county circuit because there is, amazingly, no place for him even in the Lions team, the wicketkeeping duties going to Steven Davies, of Worcestershire.

It is, though, as Miller stressed yesterday, a strong Lions team that ought to give Australia the sternest possible examination before Cardiff. It represents a mixture of those on the fringes of the Test team, who would be expected to be the first port of call if injury strikes, such as Bell, Harmison and Graham Onions, those for whom this is an opportunity to remind the selectors of past achievements, such as Sajid Mahmood, and those, such as Joe Denly, the Kent opener, for whom international cricket is as yet an unrealised ambition.

Denly, the Worcestershire pair of Stephen Moore and Vikram Solanki, Eoin Morgan, of Middlesex, and Bell are the Lions’ batsmen. It is the likes of Denly, Moore and Morgan who are the future; Vaughan, sadly, belongs to the past.

The squads

Two players — Stephen Harmison and Michael Vaughan — were given annual central contracts for this year worth about £350,000 but are not in the training squad. Four others — Tim Ambrose, Samit Patel, Owais Shah and Luke Wright — are on smaller increment contracts but are not included.

England pre-Ashes squad: A J Strauss (Middlesex, captain), J M Anderson (Lancashire), I R Bell (Warwickshire), R S Bopara (Essex), T T Bresnan (Yorkshire), S C J Broad (Nottinghamshire), P D Collingwood (Durham), A R N Cook (Essex), A Flintoff (Lancashire), G Onions (Durham), M S Panesar (Northamptonshire), K P Pietersen (Hampshire), M J Prior (Sussex), A U Rashid (Yorkshire), R J Sidebottom (Nottinghamshire), G P Swann (Nottinghamshire).

England XI (v Warwickshire at Edgbaston, July 1-3): Strauss (captain), Anderson, Broad, Bopara, Collingwood, Cook, Flintoff, Panesar, Pietersen, Prior, Swann.

England Lions ( v Australia at Worcester, July 1-4): Bell (captain), Bresnan, J L Denly (Kent), S M Davies (Worcestershire), S J Harmison (Durham), S I Mahmood (Lancashire), S C Moore (Worcestershire), E J G Morgan (Middlesex), Onions, Rashid, V S Solanki (Worcestershire).