In its attempt to breathe new life back into one-day international cricket, Cricket Australia is looking at giving frontline bowlers a greater role in the ailing game by allowing them to have at least two extra overs each.

The proposal is designed to liven up the dull patches between the 20th and 40th overs when, with fieldsmen placed in the deep, batsmen are content to bunt easy singles.

As it stands, a bowler has a maximum ten overs but a high-level CA official has told backpagelead.com.au there's support to increase this to 12.

"The time when it gets boring is when the batsmen are allowed to get six runs an over through that middle period by just pushing down to deep mid on and deep mid off and strolling through for a run," the CA official said.

"There is support to allow two bowlers to be given 12 overs and two to have eight. So if you have a Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Wasim Akram or someone of that ilk, you can bowl them for longer and put far more pressure on the batsmen in the middle overs, rather than letting a batsmen just play out bowlers.

"We saw that in New Zealand recently. Australia played out Daniel Vettori and attacked everyone else. If Vettori could bowl 12 overs, batsmen would have to go after him.

"We are looking at a range of things."

Another suggestion has been to slash the number of fieldsmen allowed outside the circle in the middle overs, encouraging batsmen to be more aggressive and hit over the top.

While the recent addition of powerplays has helped this, it is felt more needs to be done.

"If the field was up more often, the batsmen would either get out or score fours and sixes," the CA official said.

CA is adamant the 50-overs game can still flourish despite Twenty20 now being all the rage.  "I am still a firm believer that 50-overs cricket has a place," the CA official said.

"We need to do something to revitalise it so that Twenty20 is not cannibalising it. That's what is being examined at the moment.

"We're taking submissions from sponsors, Channel Nine, all the stakeholders."

The submissions will be discussed at length at a CA board meeting in May, although it's unclear at this stage if any final decisions will then be made.

Debate over the future of the 50-overs game has raged in recent years with players and fans tired of the number of meaningless matches.

CA chief executive James Sutherland has spoken about the need to bring greater context to one-day internationals.

As discussed in March by backpagelead.com.au (''Revealed: Cricket's Big Bash revamp''), almost all matches outside of the World Cup are meaningless and this has been cited as one reason why crowd numbers have dwindled in Australia.

Former Australian fast bowler Jason Gillespie wants the on-field rules to remain as they are but has endorsed calls for an annual limited overs championship with points awarded from all games.

"To have a one-day championship over a course of the year and to have a points table, that would just be fantastic but there is this Future Tours Program in place and administrators have to abide by it," Gillespie told backpagelead.com.au.

"That's not going to change in the short-term but hopefully in the long term administrators can see the value of a championship.

"That's why people have been turned off because they play too many meaningless games for some sponsored cup that no-one gives a crap about.

"I think if you can get that balance right with the Tests and T-20s then I think everything will work well."

Captain Ricky Ponting says limited overs cricket can be revitalised but Shane Warne last year called for the format to be scrapped in his six-point plan to "save" cricket.

England's county system no longer includes the 50-overs game, with a 40-over format now joining the traditional four-day game and Twenty20.

Australia's domestic Twenty20 competition, the Big Bash, enjoyed a bumper summer in terms of crowds and television audiences and it's understood states will play an extra match next summer.