Australia's home international triangular cricket series is to be revived, only three years after it was discarded.

While negotiations are still continuing with the touring nations, Cricket Australia wants to schedule a tri-series for the 2011-12 summer.

The one-day component of the season would return to the old three-team round robin and finals format, rather than the two separate five-match bilateral series that took place last summer and will again over the next two seasons.

Though CA and the International Cricket Council are attempting to alleviate some of the pressure on players under the current crowded schedule - caused in part by Pakistan's continuing unsuitablity as a cricket venue - this series would again force CA into playing extra overseas matches to "repay" touring sides for the neutral tri-series fixtures between the non-Australian teams.

Australia's triangular series was criticised in its final years for containing too many matches of not enough significance, but it was a sure-fire revenue raiser, with the neutral matches attracting considerable television money overseas.

CA chairman Jack Clarke said the board was looking at a return to the tri-series and also believed it was better to mix formats rather than keeping largely the same one for an unbroken 30-year span, as was the case with the original tri-series.

"After the next two seasons we're going to look at it again," Clarke told AAP.

"It is my belief that you don't want to have same-old, same-old, and we don't want to have years of one format where people start to say it's getting tired, as happened with the tri-series before we changed it."

Australian Cricketers Association chief executive Paul Marsh said a return to the triangular format would create some issues regarding reciprocal fixtures, but overall he was satisfied that administrators are serious about reducing the amount of cricket played.

"We were very happy to see it removed, but we understand there are good financial reasons for bringing it back," said Marsh.

"We've been saying for a long time now that the guys are playing too much, and the downside of the tri-series is that there are requirements for reciprocal matches.

"But all indications are that overall administrators are serious about reducing the number of matches and giving them more context."

Clarke echoed Marsh, and Australian captain Ricky Ponting, with his view that cricket needed to have both quality and context, though he balanced this with the imperative that the game's weaker nations needed to be given matches that might not always be lucrative for the established powers.

"My belief is that cricket has got to have quality, and it's got to have context," Clarke said.

"There's been a logjam lately because we had to move the Champions Trophy out of Pakistan last year, it should've been moved earlier, and our tour in April/May in the Middle East (against Pakistan) was unscheduled as well.

"But looking forward, there's going to be more breaks, and we're going to do the best we can to get that right."