England World Cup selection for Eleanor Cardwell

The 28-year-old was named among the players chosen by head coach Jess Thirlby for the tournament, taking place in Cape Town, South Africa, during July and August.

England are yet to win a World Cup since its inception in 1963 and finished third at the last tournament, held on home soil four years ago.

Nevertheless, Thirlby has high hopes and said: “The mood across all of the interactions that we have, we link in pretty regularly most weeks, the energy is lovely actually: they’re a great group.

“Firstly, they’re just a brilliant group of humans so I think their humility really shines through.

“They’re feeling very privileged and pretty much hellbent on success in the summer and what it is that we have to do in order to make sure we give ourselves the best chance of that.”

Jade Clarke and Geva Mentor have been selected to compete in their sixth World Cup, though five players are experiencing the competition for the first time.

That’s the case for Imogen Allison and Laura Malcolm, in addition to Cardwell, while it will be a first senior tournament for Funmi Fadoju and Olivia Tchine.

Thirlby added: “I trust in all of those debutants to come and do a brilliant job for the team, and to give us a great chance of success in the summer.

“Longer term, there’s some exciting talent. I’d be pretty confident that you've got seven, eight, nine players here that could be seen over in Australia in the next Commonwealth Games and World Cup.”