When one-day cricket first arrived on the scene it was a hot new property, with strike rates way up in the 60s and 70s.
But then Twenty20 cricket became home to the most explosive batting and inventive bowling, while Test cricket remained the legacy event and pinnacle of the sport for most, with over 100 years of history.
Then came the advent of 10-over competitions and The Hundred in the UK.
So is the 50-over game turning into the forgotten 'middle child' of the cricket world, and what, if anything, should be done about it?
ABC Sport spoke to some of Australia's top men's cricketers about the health of ODIs, heading into their international season, which will be dominated by the T20 World Cup and five Tests against West Indies and South Africa.
No-one advocated for the contest to be completely done away with, but there were a number of takes on the state of the men's ODI in 2022.
Shorten things up
The most obvious suggestion was to lose some overs because 50 is neither feast nor famine.
It wasn't long enough to be the tactical and mental battle of Tests, nor short enough to force players to up the pace and feel constantly under pressure.
Usman Khawaja, who only plays Tests for Australia these days, said "50 overs is just that little bit too long now".
The Queensland captain said he had experienced 40-over games in England's ECB 40 league and enjoyed that length of match.
"Take out that little middle bit, you'd get to 25 overs and you'd look up and 'oh crap, there's only 15 overs left, let's go again'," he said.
"So you don't have that little lull. That's my only objection to one-day cricket."
Leg-spinner Adam Zampa agreed there were 10 overs in the middle of innings where the game meandered.
"[They] either need to be scrapped or something needs to be done with them," Zampa said, although exactly what that would be was up for discussion.
"Bonuses or extra free hits or something, make it a bit more interesting," he suggested.
Don't touch it
Ashton Agar and Alex Carey were in the camp that ODIs are in good shape.
Spinner Agar said 50 overs was "just enough time to do enough".
"Ten overs is a lovely amount of bowling time, 50 overs is a good time to bat; it gives guys down the order a bit of time if a few wickets have fallen," the veteran of 46 T20s and 18 ODIs said.
"I think people get frustrated that maybe it takes a bit too long, but I think that's just because of the advent of T20 cricket. I like ODI cricket."
Carey said "there's still lots of room in the game for one-day cricket for sure" and for evidence of this, look no further than the 2019 World Cup in England, where "the atmosphere was incredible".
Former ODI captain Aaron Finch said it could be cut back to 40 overs a side, but agreed when World Cup time comes around people forget about their gripes "and it'll be bigger than Ben Hur again".
Give the bowlers a shot
Test star Nathan Lyon suggested perhaps the most likely tweak to the format.
"I'd love to see one ball come back into it," Lyon said.
"One ball from both ends, stop giving batters a brand new ball to hit. I'd like to see [them] bring reverse swing, bring spin back into it."
Since 2011, the bowling side has been given two new balls, one from each end of the pitch, which has gone a long way towards taking reverse swing and spin out of the game.
India legend Sachin Tendulkar said the ball used to start reversing at about the halfway mark of the innings, but with two balls, they are each only 25 overs old at the end of the innings.
"When the ball gets discoloured, you don't see it spinning in the air. That's when an off-spinner's doosra or a leg-spinner's googly becomes more effective," Tendulkar told Reuters.
"Also, when the discoloured ball is reversing, you don't pick the shiny side and the scruffed-up side. You take a fraction longer and the fraction lost made a batter's life more difficult."
He also said fielding restrictions had made batters' lives easier.
What do you think? Does something need to be done to help 50-over cricket reclaim some relevance, should it be done away with completely or is it fine as is? Let us know on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.