Trevor Chappell – the man who bowled the iconic underarm delivery 35 years ago – won't be at the SCG on Sunday for the first Chappell-Hadlee trophy match on Australian soil since February 2009. Instead he will be fulfilling coaching commitments with Sydney grade cricket club Gordon, where he is coach. It is that role that has Chappell questioning whether spasmodic ODI series are worthwhile, or if it would be it in the best interests of Australian cricket for players to return to their states and even their clubs in between Test series.

"They're very busy with all the cricket they've got going on. So I guess it could struggle in the future, trying to program things," Chappell said.

"Just from looking at it from the grade perspective where international players never play and state players play very little, I think that's one of the problems with Australian cricket.

"International cricketers play very little first-class cricket and they play no grade cricket. It's got to detract from the standard and the education."

This Chappell-Hadlee series slots into a tightly-packed international schedule for Australia this summer, in between the country's two home Test series against South Africa and Pakistan. The ODI series also features matches in Canberra on Tuesday, and Melbourne on Friday, coinciding with the last round of Sheffield Shield matches before the break for the Big Bash League. That timing means the members of Australia's one-day team who are also in the Test selection mix are denied the chance to play in another pink ball round of Shield cricket before the day-night Test against Pakistan in Brisbane.

The Chappell-Hadlee trophy – contested for the first time 12 years ago – has been conducted in several different compositions. Initially a three-match series, it has also been played for over five matches, and twice gone up for grabs in a World Cup group match between Australia and New Zealand. The series was shelved for six summers prior to this year, with the trophy only put up for grabs when the teams met in the group stage of ICC events.

Its medium-term place on the cricket calendar has been guaranteed by a deal secured by New Zealand Cricket for regular series until the end of 2020, agreed to as part of negotiations between the NZ governing body and Cricket Australia surrounding the inaugural day-night Test between the nations played in Adelaide last year.

While the 2015 World Cup culminated in an MCG final between co-hosts Australia and NZ played in front of more than 93,000, crowds for run-of-the-mill ODIs have declined significantly since the arrival of Twenty20 cricket. It is nearly a decade since the last non-World Cup ODI in Australia to draw more than 50,000, an Australia-England clash at the MCG in January 2007. Television ratings for ODIs have however remained strong.

There are modest attendance expectations for this series, with CA tipping "in excess of 20,000" for the match in Sydney, and the Melbourne Cricket Club predicting around 25,000 for its match. The Canberra clash at the boutique Manuka Oval should however draw a crowd of close to the ground's cricket capacity of approximately 12,000.

Creating greater context for ODIs is on the agenda for CA, who unveiled a proposal in October for international ODI and Twenty20 leagues to be introduced after the 2019 World Cup that they plan to table at an International Cricket Council meeting in February.

"With one-day and T20 cricket we are contemplating a 13-team league where everyone plays each other, home or away, in a three-match series over the course of a three-year period," CA chief James Sutherland said at the time. Should that materialise, the Chappell-Hadlee series could only be contested once every three years.

The series was named after the Chappell and Hadlee families, both of whom provided several international cricketers, most famously Kiwi great Sir Richard Hadlee and former Australian captains Ian and Greg Chappell. Trevor – the youngest and least accomplished of the three cricketing brothers to play for his country – is best remembered for bowling an underam ball at the end of an ODI at the MCG in 1981 at the request of then-captain Greg. While the act ensured victory for Australia, the incident prompted a massive furore and led to a rule change.