Shellshocked Australian coach Mickey Arthur has gone back to the drawing board to devise tricks to defeat Sri Lanka in Thursday’s tri-series decider.

Arthur has bluntly told Australia’s players of his displeasure at recent performances, particularly the crushing eight-wicket loss to the Lankans in Tuesday’s second final.

“It simply wasn’t good enough. There was no excuse for it,” Arthur told reporters in Adelaide on Wednesday.

The coach took some of the blame for the loss and allowing Sri Lanka to level the best-of-three series at a win apiece.

Arthur said Australia erred by taking the same game plan into Tuesday’s loss in Adelaide as they did into their winning first final in Brisbane.

“Our execution has been questionable at times but Adelaide is different conditions to the Gabba, so we have to go around tinkering our game plans just a little bit,” he said.

“Our plans were similar for the first two finals and that was probably a little bit of a default on our part.

“We have had another look.

“And we need to play in a different way in these conditions which are totally different.

“We have had a couple of serious chats … we are looking at ways we can beat Sri Lanka in these conditions.

“We will have a couple of tricks up our sleeve tomorrow and hopefully they work for us. We have given a lot of thought to them.”

Spinner Nathan Lyon, rushed into the squad on Wednesday, is likely to replace injured quick James Pattinson (strained buttock muscle) or current tweaker Xavier Doherty.

Batsman Peter Forrest will replace captain Michael Clarke (hamstring).

Arthur said the tactical changes would include a more aggressive mindset in the initial 10 overs of Australia’s batting innings.

“I do think we could be a little bit more bold in those first 10 overs,” he said.

“We were 1-39, they were 0-78 (after 10 overs on Tuesday) and that is a huge differential.

“And they’re certainly going to play that way again tomorrow. That is why we need to stay one or two steps ahead and our game plan will reflect that.”