FORMER Taunton student Maddie Hinch has, as expected, been named in the England squad which will compete in the Vitality Hockey Women's World Cup on home soil next month.

The competition takes place in London from July 21 to August 5, with all of England's matches already sold out.

Goalkeeper Hinch, who attended King's College in Taunton from 2002 to 2007, is one of eight Rio 2016 Olympic gold medallists in the 18-strong squad.

Following on from winning bronze at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, the 29-year-old told the County Gazette: "Now we have a great platform to reignite the excitement [from Rio] in front of sold-out crowds and on TV, so everyone’s talking about hockey again.

"We want to win a medal but we also want to play in a way that generates excitement and gets people’s attention.

"In my last World Cup [in 2014], we came 11th out of 12 teams, so obviously the ambition is to do much better!"

Looking ahead to this summer's tournament, England head coach Danny Kerry said: "We’ve taken a large number of months to understand our squad going to a home World Cup.

"I think we have world class players in key positions with a lot of pace to our attack and equally a good solidity to our defence with lots of options to get the ball out from the back.

"It will be a very tight tournament, and I am really optimistic that the squad can perform and can use the support of a home crowd in those tight games and think clearly under pressure.

"We’ve had lots of good preparation in terms of match play and our tactical understanding so it’s just a case of the last few finishing touches now but we could start tomorrow if we needed to."

England are in Pool B, beginning their World Cup campaign against India on Saturday, July 21, and then facing the USA on Wednesday, July 25 and Ireland on Sunday, July 29.

More than 100,000 tickets have been sold for the event with fans travelling from across the globe, so the capacity of Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has had to be trebled to 10,000 to cope with demand.

England squad:
Giselle Ansley, Grace Balsdon, Sophie Bray, Alex Danson (c), Sarah Haycroft, Maddie Hinch, Kathryn Lane, Hannah Martin, Lily Owsley, Hollie Pearne-Webb, Suzy Petty, Jo Hunter, Ellie Rayer, Amy Tennant, Anna Toman, Susannah Townsend, Laura Unsworth, Ellie Watton