ANOTHER Test, another defeat, this in four days by the imposing margin of 256 runs.
There is now a numbing certainty to such results. The loss of the second Test in the hot summer sunshine at ten past five here yesterday afternoon was the fifth in six Tests against England, the 30th in the last 40 Tests overseas and the eleventh, against four wins, in the 20 since Brian Lara resumed the captaincy.
The prospect of the ultimate humiliation looms in the remaining two Tests, a whitewash to England that was only averted by Lara's momentous, unbeaten 400 in Antigua last April.
This outcome was inevitable once England had the advantage of the toss and amassed their first innings 568 for nine declared by mid-way through the first afternoon on a dry pitch that deteriorated in four days of Caribbean temperatures.
The end was accelerated yesterday by dubious, untimely umpiring verdicts against three main batsmen - Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Chris Gayle - that once more exposed a lower order ill-equipped to deal with the wiles of Ashley Giles, England's rejuvenated left-arm spinner.
Giles, with a little help from the faster bowlers, instigated the swift end of the first innings on the previous afternoon when the last seven wickets tumbled for 39, the last six for 13.
The second innings capitulation was similarly rapid and once more triggered by Giles, the last seven wickets collapsing for 50 off 12.3 overs.
His five for 57 gave him nine wickets for the second successive Test but the Man of the Match award went, this time, to the swashbuckling all-rounder Andy Flintoff for his first innings hundred, his wickets and his effect on the team.
The second West Indies nose-dive began when the left-handed Chanderpaul was ruled LBW for 43 to the third ball Giles delivered from umpire Darrel Hair's end.
The spinner had deliberately switched to the pavilion after failing to persuade Simon Taufel, Hair's colleague opposite, to favour any of his numerous appeals against the tactic of using the pad to negate the spin.
As the former West Indies captain, Jimmy "Padams" Adams will attest, Hair is well known to be unsympathetic to batsmen who turn the game into a version of football.
That is all well and good but he still has to adhere to the letter of the law that states he has to be sure the ball would hit the stumps.
Chanderpaul had stretched so far forward there was no way Hair could be and `Hawkeye', the television aid, showed it would have passed well over the middle stump.
The dismissal broke his partnership of 71 with Gayle, who is turning a miserable tour for the team into a personal triumph and was having quite a day, with both ball and bat.
Gayle, stoically and solely supported by Jermaine Lawson, earlier returned his best Test figures, five for 34, with sensible off-spin, as England's last seven second innings wickets fell for 100 to be all out for 248 at lunch.
The tall left-handed opener returned after the interval to bat with utmost certainty in conditions that fully examined batting technique and temperament.
It was never easy on a pitch offering Giles sharp turn and the faster bowlers uneven bounce but he and Chanderpaul, two contrasting left-handers, were making England fight hard following their removal of Devon Smith, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Lara cheaply.
Smith could not cope with a lifting ball during a difficult opening burst from Matthew Hoggard and edged to first slip.
Sarwan prodded Giles' fifth ball, that spun across him from over the wicket, to silly point.
Lara was deemed by Taufel to have edged an on-drive against Giles into his pad. The TV replays did not support the judgement and certainly Andy Flintoff, who held the deflection at slip, was significantly restrained in appeal, of which they were numerous.
With their contrasting styles - Gayle punching away anything loose, including a swept six off Giles, Chanderpaul smelling the ball onto bat or pad - the left-handers held firm for just over an hour. Then Giles switched and Hair obliged.
Two balls later, Dwayne Bravo was bowled off-stump in almost identical fashion to the first innings, shaping to turn one to leg that spun across him.
It was not the stroke of a batsman raised on similar pitches and against similar bowling in Trinidad. It was more one of a young man in his second Test.
In the next over, when 18 away from becoming the first cricketer in more than 1,700 Tests to claim five wickets and score a hundred on the same day, Gayle played carefully forward to Giles. The ball came from pad quickly to silly point. Hair accepted that it had also taken the bat.
Gayle, who struck 15 fours and his six from 102 balls, and Hawkeye, were not convinced.
The end was now swift. Ridley Jacobs, hitting out at Hoggard, was brilliantly caught by James Anderson, one-handed, overhead, at mid-off, for his second nouught of the match, Pedro Collins was plainly LBW and Corey Collymore and Lawson bowled.
While the umpiring controversires made no difference to the eventual outcome, they did prevent the West Indies from continuing the renewed spirit they showed, if belatedly, in the first session.
Marcus Trescothick had time to gather the 12 runs he needed at the start for his second hundred of the match, repeating captain Michael Vaughan's double in the first Test at Lord's, as he and Graham Thorpe pushed their fourth wicket partnership to 132.
It took a slick piece of fielding, a rarity in this series, to separate them and set off the kind of tailend collapse the West Indies had experienced the day before and would again later.
Trecothick played Lawson backed past him and was heading back for a second when Sarwan picked up, spun around and hit the nearest stumps with his throw. Trescothick's dive for home was in vain.
After that, the procession was steady as Gayle kept his control and Lawson gave whole-hearted support for 14 successive overs.
For most of the time, Lara was off the field nursing a hand damaged in the field but the heartening effort never flagged.
The five wicket haul went to Gayle. Thorpe, whose birthday 35th present was Hair's refusal of a clear catch at the wicket, was stumped as he charged down to drive.
Andy Flintoff's attempt for a pulled six skewed off the top edge to midwicket and Giles, Steve Harmison and Hoggard made little impact.
Lawson added only one wicket to his three of the previous day, knocking back Geraint Jones' off-stump. But he deserved, and should have had, his five wickets.
Dwayne Smith, substituting, dropped a regulation catch off Giles at second slip and the sight of Hoggard's scattered stumps was spoiled by Taufel's call of no-ball, Lawson's only one of the innings.
For the next two and a half hours, the West Indies fought the good fight. But then Chanderpaul was given LBW. It fast-tracked the defeat.