Broad and Read have had eventful starts to the season

England have 12 players on central contracts, and 13 others make up the 25 players to cover the Test and one-day series with Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Darren Gough, Rob Key, Chris Tremlett, Shaun Udal and Matt Prior are left out.

Coach Duncan Fletcher will be able to withdraw any of the 25 players from county matches at his discretion.

Interview: Stuart Broad

Read, who lost his England place to Geraint Jones in the West Indies in the spring of 2004, attracted headlines for the wrong reasons this season when he was involved in a heated altercation with Sussex's Mushtaq Ahmed at Hove.

Broad impressed with a five-wicket haul against Essex in Leicestershire's opening Championship match of the season.

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Udal's omission may be regarded as a surprise, given his match-winning display in the final Test in India, when he claimed 4-14 in Mumbai. The omission of Darren Gough is another strong indication that he will not feature in next year's World Cup.

Gough, who has 235 wickets from his 157 one-day matches, has not played for England since the NatWest Challenge against Australia last summer.

Worcestershire trio Gareth Batty, Kabir Ali and Vikram Solanki are also not included.

Surrey captain Mark Butcher, now fit again after a spate of injuries, was chosen last year but fails to make the squad this time.

Ashley Giles, battling to recover from long-term fitness problems, is the oldest player in the party at the age of 33.

Chairman of selectors David Graveney explained some of the aims for the second year of the development programme.

"It enables our staff to monitor more closely the development of international players and better prepare them for the demands of the international game," he said.

Graveney was keen to stress that England players could still emerge from outside the group of 25.

"All the selectors are unanimous that the development squad must not be viewed as a 'closed shop' and players whose form merits the attention of the selectors will continue to be considered.

"There are a number of additional players who were very close to inclusion who we will also be monitoring very closely."

England development squad:
(players with asterisks have central contracts)

M Vaughan *, M Trescothick *, A Strauss *, K Pietersen *, A Flintoff *, G Jones *, A Giles *, I Bell *, S Harmison *, M Hoggard *, S Jones *, P Collingwood *, I Blackwell, S Broad, R Clarke, A Cook, J Anderson, E Joyce, J Lewis, A Loudon, S Mahmood, M Panesar, L Plunkett, C Read, O Shah.