Domestic one-day cricket has found a new home this season - a sort of strange no man's land where once-proud tournaments slink off and slowly wither away.
Until yesterday, the "Men's One-Day Tournament" did not even have a proper name. It was a description, and a sure sign the formerly thriving competition is on a slippery slope.
These days, the games are either tacked on at the end of Plunket Shield fixtures or squeezed in either side of the glitzy HRV Cup.
The competition now known as the Ford Trophy has become an inconvenience. Just how do you fit it in between the serious business of first-class cricket and the twenty/20 tournament, which pays the bills?
The answer - not easily. New Zealand Cricket has managed but this year's schedule is a yes-no-wait affair to say the least.
Otago opens its one-day campaign against Northern Districts in Dunedin on November 25. That game has been neatly tucked into the calendar, scheduled a day after Otago's Plunket Shield match against the same opponent at the same venue is expected to finish.
The coloured clothing gets tossed aside so Otago can play Wellington in a four-day game at the Basin Reserve on November 29. The side's one-day game has been added to the itinerary that week in much the same way you might add a stopover to an overseas holiday.
One-day cricket takes the stage alone for a brief two-week stint during December before it is ushered aside while the HRV Cup hogs the limelight. After a five and a-half week hiatus, the tournament finally resumes on January 26.
Publicly, NZC remains committed to the 50-over format, though you have to wonder how long it will be before the officials take the game out the back and put it out of its misery or at least give it a makeover.
If it was not for the 2015 World Cup being jointly staged in New Zealand and Australia, it would probably happen sooner rather than later.
The game is just not as relevant as it once was. People do not seem to have the seven or eight hours needed to watch a game unfold. Twenty/20's three-hour format is more manageable in the modern world.
And cricket does not have the summer to itself any more. It has been forced to compete with the likes of Super 15 rugby and a growing number of other attractions.
There is only a brief window in late December and January when people appear willing to attend domestic cricket games, and NZC capitalises on that period by scheduling its marquee product. One-day cricket is an afterthought.
Internationally, though, the format seems in better health, perhaps if only because twenty/20 is still seen as more of a club product.
The Indian Premier League has been a huge success and offers the world's elite cricketers the opportunity to improve their salary significantly.
The seven-week long festival has proved a distraction from international cricket but there is talk of establishing an international window for the tournament to exist without scheduling conflicts.
If that happens, then perhaps all three formats of the game can continue to co-exist. And as long as there is an international one-day programme, there will have to be some domestic programme of sorts.
Increasingly, though, domestic one-day cricket will continue to be pushed to the side and squeezed in where possible.
It no longer exists to bankroll other formats of the game, and four-day cricket and twenty/20 is more relevant when it comes to developing the skills players need to shine in the international arena.
That said, it will be a great shame if the game does slowly creep into retirement.
Perhaps cricket writer Peter Roebuck said it best: "No version of the game that has produced so many outstanding feats ought lightly to be tossed away in favour of a format that does not offer the possibility of greatness.
"Fifty-over cricket has staying power, is good for the game, allows the leading cricketers to produce almost their best cricket and lets supporters watch 22 players and see a result in a single day. It's worked for close to 40 years and the benefits have been huge. Doubtless further improvements await but 50-over cricket belongs to the future, not the past," he wrote in September 2009.
