Remember the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy?

Well, after four years gathering dust in the trophy cabinet of Cricket Australia's Melbourne headquarters it is likely to be back on the table for this Saturday's World Cup blockbuster at Eden Park in Auckland.

New Zealand Cricket chief executive David White approached his Australian counterpart James Sutherland yesterday about putting the forgotten piece of silverware on the line and an official announcement confirming it is due today.

The Chappell-Hadlee Trophy, named after two great famous cricket families, was last contested at the 2011 World Cup in India.

Since then, New Zealand has played 70 one-day internationals but staggeringly only against Australia once, and that was a rained-out affair at the Champions Trophy at Edgbaston, Birmingham, in 2013.

Strangely, the trophy was not put on the line on that occasion, which White said was "an oversight".

The lack of one-day matches played between New Zealand and Australia since the game in Nagpur in 2011 is hard to comprehend.

White pointed to the set-in-stone International Cricket Council future tours programme, which dictates the playing schedule for test playing nations in four-year blocks, as the main reason.

New Zealand's 70 games since 2011 have been against Sri Lanka (17), South Africa (10), West Indies (9), England (8), Pakistan (8), Zimbabwe (7), India (5), Bangladesh (3), Canada (1), Scotland (1) and Australia (1).

"It is crazy we haven't played them more," White said.

"We are coming to the end of the current future tours programme.

"In the next cycle we will be playing them [Australia] more and that will be announced in the next couple of months.

"We are playing them in three tests at the end of the year and then they are coming to us for three tests as well. There is some one-day cricket as well coming up."

White was unable to provide dates for future one-day games but some digging revealed February 2017 as available for a probable series.

Whether the two boards can negotiate a window for one-day cricket before then remains to be seen but with the trans-Tasman neighbours regarded as close to No 1 and No 2 in the world, it is a less than satisfactory situation.

"One of the challenges with Australia is because we share the same summer we both want to be playing as much as we can at home," White said.

"But it is fair to say we will be playing them more than we have, in the next four-five years.

"We'd love to play Australia more, they are consistently one of the best teams in the world, and they are our neighbours, but the reality is we share the same summer so it can be challenging from a scheduling point of view."

The Chappell-Hadlee Trophy was introduced in 2004 but in 2009 Sutherland said Australia could not commit to an annual series amid a packed schedule. Former New Zealand Cricket boss Justin Vaughan engaged Sutherland in discussions but it was a losing battle.

It was last contested as a series in the five-game rubber in New Zealand in 2010, which Australia won 3-2.