BRIAN LARA is under the pressure a succession of West Indies captains have inevitably endured as the price for the failure of their teams.
Like Sir Garry Sobers and other illustrious predecessors, Lara has discovered that his immense stature as a player does not absolve him from criticism of his leadership or guarantee his tenure.
As the most prestigious and high-profile position in the most passionately followed sport in the West Indies, it inevitably attracts comment and controversy.
Incensed fans went so far as to burn an effigy of Sobers in Port-of-Spain in 1968 after a reckless declaration opened the way for an unlikely England victory in the fourth Test.
Richie Richardson was booed by the Sabina Park crowd when he led the team out following its loss to South Africa in the 1992 World Cup and his comment that it was just another cricket match.
Lara is going through similar torment at present.
The difference with Lara is that he has had to endure it twice during a period when West Indies cricket has been in the most emphatic decline in its history, even as he himself has confirmed himself as one of the finest batsmen of all time.
Initially appointed in 1998 to replace Courtney Walsh following the West Indies' defeats in all three Tests in Pakistan, the first of the clean sweeps that have since become commonplace, Lara resigned two years later after what he described as "moderate success and devastating failure".
The successes were at home, 3-1 over England and 2-2 over Australia that featured his two stirring match-winning innings, 213 in Jamaica and 153 not out in Barbados.
The failures were the 5-0 whitewash on the first, ill-starred tour of South Africa and the subsequent loss of both Tests and all five one-day internationals.
Jimmy Adams and Carl Hooper led in the interim and Lara returned to play under both. But neither could survive continuing reversals on the field.
Adams was fast-tracked into the job on Lara's withdrawal two weeks prior to the home series against Zimbabwe and Pakistan in 2000.
The West Indies won both but defeats that followed in England, 3-1, and Australia, another 5-0 whitewash, and Adams' own poor batting form, prompted the recall of Hooper, who had announced his retirement prior to the 1999 World Cup.
The West Indies managed only four victories, against 11 defeats, in his 22 Tests in charge.
When they were knocked out after the first round of last year's World Cup in South Africa - as they had been under Lara in 1999 in England - Lara was asked by then president of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) to return to the captaincy.
Lara said at the time it would be a "dereliction of duty" not to accept. He spoke enthusiastically about the prospects of leading, and moulding, a team filled with talented young players.
Once more the success has been moderate and the failure devastating.
In his 20 Tests at the helm since his second coming, the West Indies have won four and lost 11.
The most crushing defeats have been the five inflicted by England in the six Tests between the teams in the Caribbean in March and April and at Lord's and Edgbaston here over the past week.
Lara's mounting frustration was evident in his statement prior to the second Test against Bangladesh in Jamaica in June.
His unbeaten 400 in Antigua in the preceding series had reclaimed his world Test record score but, more significantly, had prevented a dreaded whitewash against the West Indies' oldest opponents.
When his team was embarrassed by Bangladesh, Test cricket's newest and weakest team, in a drawn match in St.Lucia a few weeks later, Lara declared that he would stand down as captain if they could not win the second and final match.
They duly did, by an innings.
It was his way, Lara explained, of motivating his players. It sounded more like desperation and motivation, a prime responsibility of any leader, has been clearly lacking in the series that has followed in England.
Lara was adamant after the defeat in the second Test on Sunday that he had been appointed for the series and was fully committed to seeing it through.
To use his expression when he took over from Hooper, it would be a dereliction of duty if he didn't.
But he has been unable to raise his team out of its prolonged slump and, as its captain, he has to be held accountable - as Hooper, Adams, Walsh, Sobers and others have been before him.