Former Australian captain Bill Lawry says the future of one-day cricket is in the hands of the players believing the format can survive as long as the players are prepared to play entertaining cricket.
Lawry, now a much-loved Channel Nine commentator, was speaking on Sunday ahead of the fourth match in this summer's poorly attended one-day series between Australia and the West Indies which has been played in front of half empty stadiums so far in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide at a time when fans are showing their clear preference for the much shorter Twenty20 format.
However Lawry, who will be formally inducted into Australian cricket's Hall of Fame at the Allan Border Medal on Monday night alongside former team-mate Graham McKenzie, believes fans will return to one-day internationals but only if they are played in the same cavalier fashion as the shorter Twenty20 matches that have so captivated fans this summer.
"The game changes and when one-day cricket started everyone was saying this will kill Test cricket," he said on Sunday.
"Now they are saying Twenty20 cricket will kill one-day cricket but really I think it's up to the players (to save one-day cricket)."
Lawry said if 50-over games were played in the same manner as Twenty20 games then fans would come along but he believes at the moment they are still being played in the same manner as they were before the much more exciting Twenty20 format came along.
"Players have to realise that now that the KFC Big Bash (domestic Twenty20 competition) and Twenty20 internationals have come along that when people go to a one-day game now they expect to see plenty of fours and sixes and spectacular catches (as in Twenty20 matches)."
"People don't to go to a one-day game any more to see a player make 90 with 46 singles - we have gone past that so it if is going to survive it's in the hands of the players and the administrators because it also has to be programmed properly."
Lawry said the one-day game could offer aspects of the game that Twenty20 cannot, particularly when it comes to watching champion bowlers in action.
"I hope it (one-day games) never disappears because I want to see a Shane Warne bowl for 10 overs and not only four (as is the maximum in a Twenty20 game)," he said.
"I think if we do away with 50-over games and bowlers being able to bowl 10 overs then bowlers will be phased out of the game."