The decision of CA and NZC to play their World Cup match at Auckland for the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy drew criticism. (Source: Reuters)

World Cup co-hosts New Zealand and Australia produced a thriller at Auckland underlining why they are rated as favourites to win the title. But what is shocking is the lack of bilateral cricket between the two sides. The two sides last played a bilateral series in March 2010, when Australia beat host New Zealand 3-2 to take the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy.

New Zealand and Australia have since played each other just thrice, including Saturday’s match, in five years, and that too at ICC tournaments. Australia beat New Zealand by seven wickets in the 2011 World Cup in Nagpur. The encounter between the two sides at the 2013 Champions Trophy in Birmingham was washed out thereby ending in a no result.

It was indeed a strange turn of events for the great Trans-Tasman rivals, because the two sides played each other in 32 matches between 2002 and 2007, a series almost every year. It was in this phase that the battle for the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy was started in 2004. Then in 2009 and 2010, the battle continued, but thereafter it stopped.

The last time New Zealand played an ODI in Australia was in February 2009. So, if New Zealand does make it to the final of the ongoing World Cup, it will be their first ODI in Australia in six years.

Therfore, it is hardly a surprise that the two cricket boards, New Zealand Cricket (NZC) and Cricket Australia (CA), found a creative solution of keeping the tradition of Chappell-Hadlee Trophy alive. The last time in the 2011 World Cup and this time in 2015, the encounters between the sides were played for the trophy. Incidently, New Zealand and Australia are the only teams playing for a particular trophy in a bilateral series in ODI cricket.

“We are due to play Test cricket against each other next summer and we are examining the schedule to see what options we have for playing each other in one-day internationals on a more regular basis in the future,” said CA chief executive James Sutherland.

“It is crazy we haven’t played them more,” NZC chief executive David White told stuff.co.nz. “We are coming to the end of the current future tours programme. In the next cycle we will be playing them more and that will be announced in the next couple of months.

“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,” added White.

But the decision of CA and NZC to play their World Cup match at Auckland for the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy drew criticism from former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar. In his syndicated column, Gavaskar asked for a clarification from the International Cricket Council (ICC) on the matter.

“The ICC is quite rightly strict about ambush marketing and is severe on those trying to cash in on the World Cup fever without due authorisation. That’s why it is hard to understand how another trophy can be played for within a World Cup. Maybe there is a simple explanation. Let’s wait for it,” wrote Gavaskar in his column.

Whatever maybe the reason for the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy being at stake in Auckland, the fans had their money’s worth. Perhaps, if both sides played each other more often, creative solutions to keep a tradition alive would not be needed anymore.