Seven rounds of the championship have already been lost by putting the season on hold until May 28 and last week Alastair Cook called on the competition to be abandoned. “Whatever happens, if we do play any sort of cricket which hopefully we will, what I hope is that they don’t try and have a six-game County Championship or something like that. If there is not time for a meaningful County Championship, say [you can only play] three or four games, there is probably not much sense us having it.”

For the counties, the Vitality Blast is the main priority because of the money it brings in. Championship cricket is often staged at a loss with the few paying spectators not making up for the costs of putting players in hotels and paying their expenses. Sussex yesterday became the latest county to put the majority of their non-playing staff on furlough.

Tom Harrison, the ECB’s chief executive, has warned cricket will lose £300m if the entire season is wiped out by the coronavirus pandemic and it is understood one solution being explored by the board is to extend their broadcast deal with Sky and the BBC for an extra year taking it until 2025.

The board has already received its £1.1bn funding from the deal signed last year and the contract only states a certain amount of cricket has to be played over the entire span of the agreement. This is year one so the ECB has time to make up some lost ground but it is almost impossible to cram in an entire season into the remaining four years so extending for 12 months would save the board paying back money it has already received and budgeted for.

However there would still be a financial hit because the board would lose the first year of a new contract to start in 2025.

Harrison wrote to the Professional Cricketers’ Association at the weekend asking county players to take a 20 percent salary reduction. He subsequently contacted the centrally contracted England players separately reassuring them the board will not be imposing pay cuts on them. However the England players are ready to accept a reduction and the details will be thrashed out over the next few days.

The England players will seek assurances the money will be paid back if they somehow fulfil all their international commitments this summer. Harrison has agreed a 25 percent pay cut and other senior executives at the ECB have accepted 20 percent salary reductions to trim costs.

“As players we are open to helping in whatever way possible,” said Eoin Morgan, who is understood to have contacted all the white ball England players to discuss the issue. “We want to hopefully make an impact. The difficult thing at the moment is what is the best way to help out as players. However I think in the coming weeks when things become clearer we can start putting in a strategy or a plan.”

The counties will this week put pay proposals to their playing staff and the Professional Cricketers’ Association is asking for a collective deal rather than the 18 clubs negotiating separately.

The £61m bailout announced by the ECB on Tuesday is the first stage of payments and will solve some immediate cash flow problems for counties but longer term savings will have to be made. The board began trimming its outgoings yesterday by proposing salary cuts with staff from 25 to 10 percent and will furlough others including, it is understood, first-class umpires and match officials.