LON­DON – Bat­ting icon and for­mer Test cap­tain, Bri­an Lara, has urged West In­dies to be “tech­ni­cal and tac­ti­cal” in or­der to mit­i­gate the threat of Eng­land’s bat­ting jug­ger­naut in the three-Test se­ries start­ing next week at Lord’s.

Warn­ing of the dan­gers posed by Eng­land’s ag­gres­sive ap­proach with the bat, the 55-year-old Lara said it was im­por­tant for West In­dies to stay “ag­gres­sive” in the field, and not to fall in­to the trap of go­ing on the de­fen­sive too ear­ly.

“I think more im­por­tant is how the bowlers and the cap­tain han­dle it in the field be­cause we have to stay pos­i­tive,” Lara told Sky Sports.

“We have to stay ag­gres­sive in terms of hav­ing at­tack­ing fields, hav­ing play­ers in at­tack­ing po­si­tions, be­cause the way they (Eng­land) bat, Eng­land are go­ing to have you push­ing play­ers out on the bound­ary – which is what they want.

“You push your deep cov­er back or your third man back, your deep back­ward square back, it cre­ates op­por­tu­ni­ties for them to get sin­gles – four, five sin­gles an over is ac­tu­al­ly great scor­ing.

“We’ve got to be very tech­ni­cal and tac­ti­cal in terms of how we ap­proach this se­ries.”

Un­der head coach Bren­don Mc­Cul­lum and Test cap­tain Ben Stokes, Eng­land has un­der­gone a rev­o­lu­tion in the longest for­mat with the adop­tion of an ag­gres­sive brand of crick­et which pun­dits have la­belled ‘Bazball’.

It has seen Eng­land play an at­trac­tive brand of ag­gres­sive crick­et, es­pe­cial­ly when bat­ting, which has played op­po­si­tion bowlers un­der re­lent­less pres­sure.

In con­trast, West In­dies have adopt­ed a more at­tri­tion­al ap­proach in an at­tempt to grind out re­sults, but Lara sug­gest­ed this might be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive.

“I don’t think first of all, as a bat­ting team that (ag­gres­sion) is our style, which ac­tu­al­ly is a lit­tle bit of a neg­a­tive,” he said.

“If you’re go­ing to come up against a side that’s scor­ing at five and six runs an over and you’re just go­ing to score at 2.5, three runs an over, that in it­self is ask­ing for trou­ble.”

He added: “Eng­land is play­ing a style of crick­et that is dif­fi­cult to beat them, com­ing from be­hind. We’ve got to get them out cheap­ly in the first in­nings to stay in front of the game.

“If you get be­hind Eng­land – with the pace they play the game at – it’s im­pos­si­ble to get back in­to the game.”

West In­dies have al­ready suf­fered one blow to their squad ahead of the se­ries with vet­er­an seam­er Ke­mar Roach ruled out with a knee in­jury.

It means the Caribbean side has been left with a rel­a­tive­ly in­ex­pe­ri­enced at­tack with on­ly seam­ers Ja­son Hold­er and Alzarri Joseph hav­ing played more than 10 Tests.

How­ev­er, Lara, who gath­ered 11,953 runs from 131 Tests, said his con­cern more sur­round­ed the in­ex­pe­ri­enced bat­ting line-up.

“I’m not wor­ried too much about Ke­mar Roach miss­ing out or the bowl­ing at­tack. I think the bowl­ing at­tack is pret­ty for­mi­da­ble,” he said.

“I think the bat­ting is where the ex­pe­ri­ence is lack­ing. And they’re try­ing – the bat­ters are try­ing – but it’s the fact that how much ex­pe­ri­ence have they had in Eng­lish con­di­tions?

“So I’m hop­ing we can pull through in that de­part­ment.”

The first Test bowls off next Wednes­day (Ju­ly 10).

CMC