The Chappell-Hadlee series has waxed and waned in popularity over the years.

KEVIN NORQUAY - YES

New Zealand versus Australia meaningless?

An international one-day cricket series against our world-best arch rivals counts for nothing?

We shouldn't care about the Chappell-Hadlee series?

Cricket tragics say all that matters in one-day games is the World Cup (which New Zealand have never won), and the ICC Champions Trophy (which we have).

So an extension of that argument leads to an international calendar packed with one-dayers that don't matter, a view which can't be allowed to go through to the keeper.

The tragics say Australia have proved the Chappell-Hadlee series doesn't matter by resting damaging batsmen David Warner and Usman Khawaja.

​Warner scored 299 runs against the Kiwis in December, with a best of 156 as Australia romped to wins by 68 runs, 116 runs and 117 runs.

So do we watch the Black Caps come home bats between tails, see off Bangladesh, and now try to argue the Chappell-Hadlee series really doesn't matter.

Dave Warner has been rested for next week’s series. GETTY IMAGES

Would we do that, had we'd won in Australia? We get smashed and it doesn't matter - we'll just pick up our fan bats and walk away, giving the stumps a quick slog as we leave saying "who cares, not playing anymore, boo hoo".

Of course the Chappell-Hadlee series matters. World No 1 (Australia) versus No 4 (Black Caps), with New Zealand a chance to climb to No 3. If you don't care about that, then there's a lot you don't care about.

Newcomer Tom Blundell cares. He wants a chance to prove himself, facing the world's best side, facing Mitchell Starc in full flight.

Personal reputations will be on the line, whatever the result. Facing Starc could see a Black Cap build a career, or send it cartwheeling out of the ground.

Oddly, New Zealand has more world ODI top 10 players in action than Australia - Kane Williamson and Martin Guptill among the batsmen, Trent Boult and Matt Henry versus Starc among the bowlers.

Since it started in 2004, names like Vettori, Bond, Ponting, Hussey, Johnson, Guptill and Warner have featured on the player of the series list. I'd call that quality worth caring about.

So instead of invoking the Kiwi Mi-Sex hit But You Don't Care, let's go AC/DC and put the Aussies on the Highway to Hell.

And while we're about it let's call it what Brendon McCullum reckons we already do - the Hadlee-Chappell series.

That would be hard case, eh?

ANDREW VOERMAN - NO

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and that was certainly the case with the Chappell-Hadlee series.

After bursting onto the scene in December 2004, promising regular trans-Tasman competition, it disappeared for six years between 2010 and 2016, barring a couple of matches at World Cups which were bizarrely given the moniker.

Was it missed, during the six-year drought?

You bet it was.

In a sport where there are only eight consistently competitive nations, it is mind boggling that two of them could go so long without meeting for a proper series.

You don't fix a drought by creating a flood, however, and that's what's happened here.

The three-match series last March in New Zealand was fine, coming a year after the World Cup, and in conjunction with a test tour, but to go and do it all again just nine months later was too much too soon.

Yes, the results in that series (three Black Caps losses, none of them close) probably do cloud my judgment, but it's not like they were hard to see coming.

For the Aussies, that series came hot on the heels of a test series against South Africa, while for the Kiwis, it followed swiftly from a series against Pakistan.

It was over and done in the space of six days, and at the end what had we learnt?

Mitch Marsh’s dismissal last year is one of the few memorable Chappell-Hadlee moments. PHOTOSPORT

The only thing gained, for either side, was that while Lockie Ferguson has potential, he definitely needs improvement, something that could have easily been figured out against Bangladesh or South Africa, our incoming tourists this summer.

Now they're back at it again, squeezing in another three games in seven days - only slightly more exciting than last time for the fact that once again the Black Caps are out for revenge.

Everyone in the cricket world agrees that schedules are packed, so why are we whacking even more games in?

Play too many matches, and they all blur into nothing.

How many of the 29 Chappell-Hadlee matches do you remember? No more than a handful, I'm guessing.

One-day cricket is like that. Here today, gone tomorrow, and leaving little impact.

Where test cricket still reigns supreme, and Twenty20 has become the ideal short-form - done in less than four hours and not prone to drag in the middle overs, because there are no middle overs - one-day cricket has stagnated.

It remains relevant only because it is the format of choice for the World Cup, with matches growing in meaning the closer we get to the tournament itself - and at present, it's still a long way away.

In small doses, one-day series still work, when countries come to visit every four years or so, but when they happen every year they don't - as the Chappell-Hadlee is proving right now.