The West Indies can't shake their perverse habit of taking one step forwards and immediately following it with one long stride backwards.
Until they do, they will languish in the nether regions of world cricket along with Zimbabwe, the latest beneficiaries of their inconsistency with victory by six wickets in the second one-day international here yesterday, and Bangladesh.
Their result levelled the series with three matches remaining in Harare on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. The outcome will depend on whether it's Dr.Jekyll or Mr. Hyde who turns up in the maroon uniform of the West Indies.
Their latest deviation came 24 hours after they amassed 347 for six, their second highest total in ODIs, that set up victory by 51 runs in the opening match long before the weather brought the Duckworth-Lewis system into play.
Now they were dismissed in 42.5 overs by the same bowling on a similar pitch for 125.
The contrast is familiar to all who have faithfully followed the vagaries of the West Indies for the past decade or so.
It was just over a week since they followed their first innings 481 in the second Test at the same venue with a second innings 128.
In their last one-day series, against Sri Lanka in the Caribbean last June, they were bowled out for 146 one day and amassed 312 for four the next day at Kensington Oval, and were beaten both times.
To record their many further discrepancies would be to waste too much valuable newsprint.
Captain Brian Lara identified the principal cause afterwards as `attitude'.
"I think our approach needs to be checked," he said. "I think the attitude going out today might have been a little too relaxed. It's something we need to look at."
It is a problem that has been looked at over and over under a succession of captains, coaches and players but it remains unsolved.
Zimbabwe themselves are unaccustomed to the favourable situation they found themselves in and threatened to choke at the prospect of a rare victory, just as they did to lose the second Test at the same Queen's Sports Club ground eight days earlier.
They were 54 for four halfway through the 19th over when their stalwart captain Heath Streak strode out to calm the nerves of another vociferous, chanting, flag-waving crowd of over 7,000, sizeable by recent Zimbabwean standards.
With the fortune that usually favours the brave, he struck 38 from 37 balls in a match in which previous scoring was below three runs an over.
With the steady support of the No.3 Mark Vermuelen, who was already 35 when his captain entered, the partnership was worth 60 from 11.1 overs when the result was formalised with as many as 20.2 overs in hand.
Vermuelen, century-maker in the second Test but first ball victim the previous day, calmly proceeded to 66, with as many as 13 fours, an innings that earned him the Man of the Match award.
Zimbabwe's triumph was set up by disciplined bowling that contrasted with the waywardness of the first match, by inspired fielding and by the cheap dismissals of Saturday's century-makers Chris Gayle and Brian Lara, both to Andy Blignaut.
Gayle, flat-footed, nibbled a catch to the keeper in the sixth over.
Lara was caught on the crease and lbw to a ball of full length from round the wicket in the eighth.
The setbacks had a constipating effect on the remaining batsmen.
Runs were only squeezed out with effort against the new ball pair, Blignaut and Streak, the medium-pacers Sean Ervine and Gary Brent and the spinners, Ray Price and Trevor Gripper.
The frustration led to inevitable errors.
Wavell Hinds needed 44 balls for 17 and then edged Ervine's slower ball to the keeper.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul briefly broke free with a four and a pulled six off successive balls from Brent but fell to Streak's diving, low catch at extra-cover next ball.
Two balls later, Ramnaresh Sarwan's tortured 13 off 56 balls was ended, for the second day in succession, by a run out that was more the fault of his partner, Marlon Samuels, than his own. A quick single on a push to mid-wicket is always likely to leave the non-striker short.
The rest couldn't respond to the crisis and it was left to a couple of straight sixes from off-spinner Gripper's bowling and some effective running between the wickets for Samuels to finish unbeaten 36 and raise 27 from the last two wickets.
No bowling figures were more instructive than left-arm spinner Price's: 10-2-16-2.
It needed a similar West Indies effort to make a fight of it and, when the openers were despatched within the first three overs, there was a spring in the step.
Gripper was victim of spectacular fielding. Sarwan chased his pull off Ravi Rampaul and made a sliding save that dislodged the mid-wicket ropes but, as TV replays confirmed, was legal.
As the batsmen saw a chance of running four, Samuels, who has joined in the sprint, gathered the ball and hurled it 90 yards into Baugh's gloves with Gripper well short of his ground going for a fourth run.
When Corey Collymore had Craig Wishart taken at midon from a miscued pull and knocked out Stuart Mazikenyeri's off-stump with a beauty, the contest was alive.
But Streak was twice missed on difficult chances by Chanderpaul, when two low down at short extra-cover in Rampaul's first over of a new spell and one run later high to his right at second slip off Collymore.
They were the last chances the West Indies would have to turn around a match they did not deserve to win.