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Coach Mickey Arthur says Australia must show a ruthless streak to take the one-day series lead over the West Indies.
Australia coach Mickey Arthur has told his players to lift their game and show a ruthless streak to subdue the West Indies in Friday's fourth one-day international in St Lucia.
Arthur is unhappy at the fundamental blunders his players have been making in the five-game series, which is locked at 1-all after Tuesday's tie in St Vincent.
He says a repeat performance will not be good enough against a spirited Windies side - even without match-winning opener Chris Gayle, who has once again been overlooked by the home selectors.
"We've made some bad mistakes in every game," Arthur told AAP.
"We probably haven't done the basics well enough and we haven't done the one-per-centers well enough.
"We're sitting here at one-all. We're playing against a West Indies team that has never gone away, never rolled away.
"They seem to have a lot of spirit and they're really up for the fight, but we've certainly missed opportunities to be 2-1 ahead."
The Windies made one change to their squad for the final two one-dayers, naming Adrian Barath in place of opener Kieran Powell on Wednesday.
Gayle held a meeting with West Indies board members in St Vincent on Monday to try to resolve the dispute that has kept him out of the game since last year's World Cup.
But it's believed no resolution could be found with the big-hitting opener wanting to honour his commitments to Indian Premier League (IPL) team Bangalore and county side Somerset for the English Twenty20 competition.
Those commitments clash with the Australian tour and then a tour of England in May and any further talks with Gayle and the board have been delayed until after then.
It means Gayle will be unavailable for Australia's visit, which also includes three Tests starting on April 11 in Barbados, a week after the start of the IPL.
That competition is also set to mean young spinner Sunil Narine, who has taken eight wickets at 10.37 so far in the one-dayers, as well as veteran batsman Marlon Samuels are also unavailable to the hosts for the Test series.
Windies coach Ottis Gibson refused to talk about the Gayle situation after Tuesday's tie but admitted Narine could miss the Tests.
The 23-year-old is on a lucrative $US700,000 ($A670,000) deal with Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL but doesn't hold a central contract with the West Indies.
"I'm not sure what the board can do because he's not contracted to the board," Gibson said.
"He's got a situation that is going to set him up very nicely and as much as we would like to have him playing, six months ago Narine was not in our thoughts.
"We need to be a little bit careful in how we deal with that situation and that's what we're doing at the moment. There's conversations going on behind the scenes."
Regardless of who they're up against, Australia know they're in for a fight going into Friday's fourth one-day at the Beausejour Stadium in Gros Islet.
Both teams travelled to St Lucia on Wednesday and will train at the Beausejour Stadium on Thursday, with Australia unlikely to name a final XI until at least after their training session.
Friday's game begins at 9.30am (Sat 0030 AEDT).
