Brian Lara has pronounced himself satisfied with his team's batting and dismissed the appalling day in the field on Sunday as a "one-off".
It is the bowling that has the West Indies captain worried following hefty losses to South Africa in the first two Tests.
"We've got a bowling problem," he said after the defeat by an innings and 65 runs at Kingsmead in the second Test here on Monday. "We're not bowling well."
"We've been consistently in trouble with the ball and that is a major problem," he conceded. "The bowlers realise what's going on and I think we're going to get that together."
"It's definitely something we've got to sit down and talk about, converse about, and find a way to get things right," he added.
The time for sitting and conversing is a long time past. So has the time for practising and exercising the basic discipline of line and length and bowling to the fields set by the captain.
It is the reason why Kenny Benjamin has been added to the support staff as bowling coach. But he cannot achieve in a few months what has eluded others, at both territorial and regional levels.
As Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, Gary Kirsten and the other South African batsmen rattled along at the rate of four runs an over, smashing 80 fours and two sixes in their massive 658 for nine declared here, there was hardly an over in which a long-hop or wide half-volley didn't come along.
The worrying part is that it was nothing new.
The stats for the West Indies' 10 Tests in 2003 are staggering but not appreciably worse than the year before that and the year before that.
They have conceded over 600 twice, to Australia in Bridgetown and South Africa here, and over 500 three times, to Australia in Port-of-Spain, Zimbabwe in Harare and South Africa in Johannesburg.
Only three times have they bowled the opposition out twice - and each time achieved their only victories, over Australia in St.John's, Sri Lanka in Kingston and Zimbabwe in Bulawayo.
Even so, writer Peter Robinson's derisive comment in This Day newspaper here yesterday that "the West Indies attack might struggle to bowl out any decent Test side in 10 days, let alone five," is not far off the mark at present.
It has been occasionally handicapped both here and in the Caribbean by flawed selection.
On this tour, injuries have denied Lara the use of Jerome Taylor after nine overs of the first and Fidel Edwards after 11 of the second in Zimbabwe and Chris Gayle's containment has been missing in both Tests here.
But this does not explain why bowlers of considerable experience like Merv Dillon and Vasbert Drakes, at their modest pace, find it impossible to string together two maiden overs in a row.
More inexplicable is why, after all these years in the game, they - and so many others who have bowled for the West Indies in the recent past - seem unable to properly assess conditions and their roles.
Dillon, Drakes and Adam Sanford kept pounding the ball short into the true, easy-paced Kingsmead pitch in the second Test and the batsmen kept smiling and pulling them to the mid-wicket boundary.
At last, the West Indies have in Edwards a bowler of genuine pace and immense promise. But, as Lara has noted, he is an attacker who is always likely to go for runs. He needs support and he is not getting it.
The Australians provided the example to follow in their simultaneous Test in Melbourne against India.
Brett Lee is their Edwards - or, more accurately, Edwards should be the West Indies' Lee.
In Melbourne, Lee went for 97 from 22 overs (two wickets). In Durban, Edwards' had 115 taken from his 25 overs (one wicket). The rates per over were almost identical - 4.4 and 4.6.
The difference was that Lee was backed by two Test novices Nathan Bracken (25 overs for 45, three wickets) and Brad Williams (22 overs, 53 runs, four wickets).
Edwards' support was Dillon (33 overs, 111 runs, one wicket), Drakes (30 overs, 113 runs, two wickets) and Sanford (39.2 overs, 170 runs, three wickets).
Lara is rightly adamant that he will not advise Edwards to compromise his pace and hostility for accuracy.
Ravi Rampaul and, when they are fit again in every sense, Jermaine Lawson and Jerome Taylor are others with Edwards' attributes. They, too, need the relief of bowlers who can bottle up the opposite end so that their aggression is allowed free rein.
But, like all other disciplines, control can only be perfected by diligence and practice. There is too little evidence of either in West Indies cricket.
Makhaya Ntini had to work for three, often frustrating months before he felt comfortable delivering from close to the stumps.
It is a technique that has so improved his angles that he has taken more Test wickets in 2003 than any other bowler.
After six years in international cricket, Dillon is still unable to follow suit and continues to limit his options for wickets as a consequence.
And how many current West Indian bowlers can, or even try, to vary pace?
Yet the master of the slower ball, Franklyn Stephenson, is living in Barbados, willing to show anyone who cares to listen but, instead, teaches tourists golf.
A few years ago, when he was the West Indies team coach, Andy Roberts, one of our many champion fast bowlers, complained that he couldn't get his successors who were in his change to listen. Perhaps that's still the problem and no amount of conversing can solve it.