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'Brian Lara has said it. Jimmy Adams has acknowledged it. Steve Waugh and Glenn McGrath have commented on it.'

Whether you are in the West Indies team or in the opposition, watching from the stands or on the television screen half a world away, it is obvious that the West Indies have been psychologically broken by their four heavy losses to Australia and that the fifth and final Test, starting here (8 p.m. today Caribbean time), is likely to bring them even more torture on their tortured tour.

McGrath, the fast bowler who set up Australia's dominance with his ten for 27 in the first Test Test in Brisbane, observed yesterday that the West Indies' body language - tells a story.

"If you get on top of them when they are in the field, they tend to go fairly quiet," he wrote in his newspaper column.

"When they are batting, as soon as we get early wickets, I think it has a huge effect on the whole team."

"After a while of constantly beating them, it's got to take its toll," he added.

Captain Waugh also referred to body language, of batsmen walking to the wicket and showing that 'something's not quite right there.'

"We've got them down and they don't know how to get out of it," Waugh added at the media conference following the drubbing by 352 runs in the fourth Test in Melbourne on Friday.

Previous West Indian teams have been in the same plight.

Clive Lloyd's of 1975-76 was also down and didn't know how to get out of it, losing the series 5-1. But that was a temporary setback that was soon superceded by the longest successful run in Test cricket until Waugh's Australians eclipsed it in this series.

There is nothing temporary about the West Indies' current slide. They have now lost 17 of their last 19 Tests abroad and no team in the game's long history has ever had such a dismal record.

Yet the results emphasise that nothing has changed in the interim and, if anything, just got worse.

It is all relatively new to Jimmy Adams but no less painful.

For different reasons, he missed the first two of the overseas debacles, in Pakistan in 1997 and South Africa a year later. He was leading the 'A' team in South Africa when the West Indies lost all three Tests in the former series and was ruled out of the latter by his mysterious accident abroad the flight out that led to severed tendons in his right hand.

Like Lara before him, he enjoyed immediate success when elevated to the captaincy on Lara's exit.

Lara led a triumphant home series against England as soon as he replaced Courtney Walsh following the Pakistani debacle of 1997. Adams had winning home series against Zimbabwe and Pakistan and an emphatic innings victory over England in his first Test abroad. Since then, it has been all downhill.

The fragile resistance of so many of the players 'most also engaged in Pakistan and South Africa earlier' crumbled in the first sign of a fight.

Adams has repeatedly has his say. Most of it has centred around a lack of mental toughness and a lack of consistency.

From the start, he called for psychological help from a professional, a facility the West Indies Cricket Board has only afforded for home series. He had to wait a month for his request to be heeded but Joe Hoad's appointment could not be expected to have any long-term effect.

Now Adams himself in under pressure. He remains a determined and dedicated leader and player but his tactics have been unimaginative and his cricket unconvincing.

Waugh called him 'a nice guy and a good cricketer' and sympathised with him for his plight. But he could see that his batting is 'showing the signs of stress' and that he is 'not really thinking clearly.'

Once the leader reaches that stage it is difficult for him to rally his men. The situation is compounded when his deputy, in his case Sherwin Campbell, is in the same predicament and when only Ridley Jacobs of his senior players is consistently pulling his weight.

This series will soon be out of the way, to be followed by the One-Day tournament, after which some difficult decisions will have to be made prior to the home series against South Africa, opponents almost as daunting as Australia.

In the meantime, we can only keep our fingers crossed that Adams and his men can at least put up something of a show over the coming five days.

© The Barbados Nation