ENGLAND'S greatest ever bowler James Anderson and Lancashire's Test hopefuls have been preparing for the visit of West Indies at Chester Boughton Hall.

Anderson, who has 584 Test wickets to his name, was joined at Filkins Lane by county colleagues Keaton Jennings, Matt Parkinson, Saqib Mahmood, Liam Livingstone and Richard Gleeson, the quintet in England's extended 55-man squad.

With the West Indies camped out in the 'bio-secure' environment of Old Trafford, Lancashire's players are unable to use their home facilities ahead of the the first Test at The Ageas Bowl on Wednesday, July 8.

Talking to the Sky Sports Cricket podcast, Lancashire director of cricket Paul Allott said: "The challenge of course is that with the West Indies coming into Old Trafford, everybody has to move away from the ground - it's in isolation for the West Indies.

"We've had a number of England players practising at Old Trafford, Jimmy Anderson has been bowling there, Matt Parkinson, Saqib Mahmood, Richard Gleeson has started and Keaton Jennings has been batting.

"They are going to be joined by Liam Livingstone soon as well, so what I've had to do is try and find other venues which we can use, which isn't easy.

"We've got Liverpool as our second venue, but the way the schedule is looking we are going to have to use Liverpool to play matches on in August, because I don't think we will be able to use Old Trafford - maybe for a small gap in mid-August for a game of two.

"Liverpool has a finite number of pitches we can use, so we can't use those to practice and we've got to go somewhere else basically.

"The plan is to set up at Chester Boughton Hall, I know it's not in Lancashire, but it's got two big grounds, fantastic squares, great pitches and four nets.

"Plus set up a number of satellite grounds. I've already had offers from Southport and Newton-le-Willows to help get all our players back in training.

"It's compounded by the fact that it's not turn up in the car lads, everybody has a two hour practice and we all disappear again.

"We've found that getting the four England players through practice at Old Trafford takes between five and six hours with all the protocols you have to attend to in terms of cleaning and isolation."

Chester Boughton Hall were only too happy to help Lancashire, who have played second team cricket at Filkins Lane in recent seasons.

“Obviously we’re delighted to have Lancashire here at Chester,” said Boughton Hall president, Jim Law.

“We’ve hosted a number of Lancashire 2nd XI games, including Jimmy Anderson’s ‘comeback game’ last year and we’ve hosted the Lancashire Thunder Ladies team.

"Paul Allot approached his our chairman Chris Fleet about the possibility of using the ground and Chris has put the wheels in motion to make it happen.

“There’s an awful lot of work gone on around the place - obviously in difficult circumstances - and the ground looks a picture.

"Groundsman Alex Kegg is renowned for the quality of his pitches and aided by Tom Evans, we’re really pleased how things have shaped up.

"Obviously the site has been made secure and there are strict rules as to how we operate but everybody understands that and is making the best of it.

“All this obviously means restricted access for our members but we’re working around this and the facilities are available outside of training hours.

"This is a difficult time for all clubs with income clearly restricted but we remain positive that it won’t belong before members can access our bar and outside terrace areas again.”