England must attempt to pick themselves up and try to save the final Test after witnessing Brian Lara underline his status as one of the greats of the game with a record-breaking innings.
The tourists will resume the fourth day on 171 for five needing to reach a daunting 552 just to avoid the follow on after West Indies captain Lara reclaimed his world record for an individual Test innings, an unbeaten 400.
Lara's display, which was only ended when he declared on 751 for five - the largest total ever conceded by England - left the tourists needing to bat out the final two-and-a-half days to prevent their series triumph being tarnished by a final-Test defeat.
But the loss of five wickets before the close of an enthralling third day, which was only partially rescued by an encouraging 73-run unbroken stand between Andrew Flintoff and Geraint Jones, has left England heading towards a convincing loss.
England's batting was in stark contrast to the stunning performance from Lara, who was at the crease for nearly 13 hours and hit 43 fours and four sixes to reclaim the record he only surrendered to Australian Matthew Hayden 185 days ago when he clubbed 380 against Zimbabwe in Perth.
He became the first player in history to hold the world record twice and England captain Michael Vaughan conceded: "We all set out to achieve greatness, but he is a gifted, gifted player - throughout his innings we tested him with a few things but he was much better than us for those two days."
Commenting on his innings, Lara said: "I knew the pitch was there for any batsman that applied himself and I knew if I batted for a long time then I would make a decent score and I didn't really think about the record until I got to my double hundred and realised there was still a lot of time left in the game because of the rate we were scoring."