Asia Cup 2018 : A significant glory, A money making ploy, a scheduling nightmare? 

International cricket these days seems to be like a fast train, especially if you're the Indian cricket team. It is slowly becoming like that European holiday a family of four takes, where they try to cover each country in a couple of days, leaving no time to enjoy the beauty of a place or mourn the loss of having left one.

Before you know it, you're out of one series and entering another.

While this is good for the BCCI, ICC and broadcasters, one must genuinely ask the cricketer and the cricket fan this question :

Has incessant scheduling lost the glory in sport?

Indian Cricketers were playing in the cold weather of London, wearing jackets on the field, not more than a week ago. Now, they're tying ice-packs and playing back to back matches in the sweltering heat of Dubai.

It is not surprising, then, that while playing Hong Kong, it seemed that they were just going through the motions.

It is not surprising, then, that Virat Kohli opted to rest for the tournament and Hardik Pandya is out of the series, having left the field on a stretcher after bowling just under five overs.

One must also ask the question, that does Indian cricketers feel dissatisfied after a poor performance or exhilarated after a good one? Apart from ICC events, there isn't much exciting cricket left around. And ICC events, too, are glorified because they come once in two years or once in four years.

Why is India Pakistan so glorified? The British Raj, Kargil War and Partition notwithstanding, India VS Pakistan is so glorious because they play hardly once or twice in a year or two. But ask them to play back to back matches after six months of continuous cricket, even this epic rivalry loses its charm.

This was quite apparent in the intensity of the players on the field in the second innings of their first encounter of the Asia Cup as compared to the first.

One must ask the fan the question, how much does he want his country to win the Asia Cup? How much is he rooting for it? How badly do the players want to win it? To what extent can a team go to win it for its country? What will be the level of satisfaction it achieves on winning the tournament?

To be fair, this Asia Cup could have been a much more intense tournament, having a much larger impact, if the scheduling was done correctly. But what can one do when India keeps hosting Sri Lanka or West Indies every year or two to defeat them and make them feel good about themselves?

As a cricket fan, I would like much lesser cricket to be played. I would prefer quality over quantity. I would prefer intense battles overrun of the mill matches. For it is only these, that make the game of cricket so wonderful. It is these, that made the 90s and early 2000s the golden era of cricket. It is these, that made me offer an extra prayer, to help India defeat Pakistan in the World Cups.