Clearly intent on making amends on the imminent tour of South Africa for the 5-0 thrashing the West Indies received there in his first tenure as captain five years ago, Brian Lara's frustration is mounting at a Zimbabwe series that has failed to follow the prescribed script.
He used the word "miserable" to appropriately des-cribe the humbling defeat in Sunday's second one-day international that levelled the five-match series 1-1.
But his newspaper column following Sunday's embarrassment, when the West Indies were despatched for 125 in 42.3 overs, revealed he had future events on his mind.
"A display like the one we gave yesterday is far below what we expect to deliver even on our worst day," he wrote. "I must say that it was nothing near what I expected from our team that should be going into top gear with all [of] the tough cricket we have ahead of us."
The "tough cricket" is a reference to the four Tests and five one-day internationals in South Africa, the West Indies' next destination when they leave Harare on Monday.
They cannot be satisfied with less than a triumphant 4-1 margin for they are already well behind where Lara expected they would be at this stage - and showing no signs of moving in the right direction.
Lara's desire to make good on his second go at the captaincy and to build a team around him have been even more obvious here than they were on his return in the home series against Australia and Sri Lanka.
His enthusiasm is plain on the field but it has created a lack of patience that manifests itself in constant field and bowling changes and unusual field settings. He might be advised to follow Frank Worrell's adage, "leave well enough alone" or, put another way, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." It would certainly allow his bowlers to settle into their work without repeated interventions.
Coach Gus Logie yesterday acknowledged that Lara is "not a conventional captain by any means" and said that his decisions in the middle are mainly spontaneous.
"Yes, we do have discussions on the way things should be but, as we know, Brian has his own ideas," he said. "Sometimes in the middle you have a different perspective on the best laid plans."
Logie said his aim was to support and initiate discussion as much as possible.
"I've said to him that there should be the total involvement of the team, that the team should know what's happening," he added. "Once the captain and the team are in sync with each other and we as a support group are here, we're going in the right direction."
There is nothing Lara can do about the supposedly strong batting which has repeatedly betrayed the team, most glaringly in their all-out 125 in Sunday's defeat when every main batsman in the squad of 15 played.
It meant as competent a player as Vasbert Drakes went in at number nine, but, by then, the innings were in terminal decline as one limp wicket fell after another.
The only batting alternative for Wednesday's third match at the Harare Sports Club is to replace Carlton Baugh, the reserve wicket-keeper, with Ridley Jacobs, on the grounds of experience and proven fighting qualities.
Even with, or perhaps because of, the batting failures, there is a strong case for picking four fast bowlers, rather than three as in the first two matches, to boost the bowling penetration.
It would bring in either Fidel Edwards, who has been available all along after recovering from his ankle injury in the second Test, or Jerome Taylor.
Taylor, the 19-year-old Jamaican, was examined by a specialist yesterday and given an MRI scan on the lower back that he strained in the first Test.
Although passed fit three days later, Taylor has complained of continuing discomfort. His future on the tour is likely to depend on the report on yesterday's examination.
Confident expectations were that, by now, the West Indies would have comfortably taken the two Tests and were 2-0 up in the ODIs.
That would have been proof that the advances made against Australia and Sri Lanka at the end of the home season in May and June were being sustained and that the team was ready for the sterner test that immediately follows across the border.
Instead, the performances have carried the trademark of inconsistency with which West Indies cricket has come to be identified away from home. The win in the Test series was simply a repeat of that by the same 1-0 margin over the same opponents here two years ago, the last time the West Indies were victorious on foreign soil.
But, while the West Indies won the first Test in 2001 by an inning, on this occasion, they were, to use a boxing analogy, initially saved by the bell and were well behind on points before landing a desperate knockout punch in the final round. The two ODIs have been the same story as the Tests - too few good sessions, too many bad.
There is no change in personnel, no shifting of the batting order, no magic formula to put such deficiencies right.
Lara, like so many others before him, saw the problem as attitude, a take-it-for-granted approach in spite of all the evidence over 11 days of cricket against a dogged and united team that makes the most of its potential.
There is a word for such an attitude and it is arrogance. There can be no such sentiments in South Africa.