"Selection Day": Ultra-Closeted Gay Cricket Players Who Don't Play Cricket

The 2016 novel Selection Day, by Aravind Andiga, traces the journey of two boys, Radhu and Manju, being groomed by their father to become cricket stars.  Well, perhaps "aggressively shoved into" is more accurate.  The elder Mr. Kumar is completely obsessed with the sport, and believes that his sons are his ticket to fame and fortune. 

Manju, the central character, has two secrets: he doesn't like cricket very much, but he's afraid to tell his father tha he wants to become a scientists; and he's gay.  But if he comes out, he will lose his cricket scholarship and his career -- cricket is even more heterosexist than American sports, and gay athletes absolutely "do not and cannot exist."

His wealthy boyfriend Javed encourages him to come out anyway, but you know, Manju is poor.  The rich have options that the poor do not.  They can choose not to marry.  They can spend most of their time in London.  They can be "eccentric" without losing their families, their social statuses, maybe their lives.  The poor have to marry or die, they can't flee to London.  They are stuck.  The novel ends with Manju stuck.

I was interested in seeing how the Netflix tv series (2018) would handle the book.  After all, Manju being gay is pretty much the entire plot.  How could they heterosexualize him? 

Turns out that they don't exactly heterosexualize him, but they gay-subtext him into oblivion.  He's angst-ridden over something that is unknown and unknowable.  He kind of glances at Javed. He hangs out with girls.

Javed (Karanvir Malhotra, above) is such a minor character that he doesn't make much of an impression at all.

I actually get more of gay vibe from Lord Subramayan (Shiv Pandit, top photo and left), Manju's touch-feely mentor. But it's a creepy-homophobic gay predator vibe.

If I didn't know Manju was gay from the book, I'd never figure it out in the series.  In an interview, Mohammad Samad (who plays Manju) states that he wasn't even aware that his character was gay until after he was cast.

I have two more questions about this boring, homophobic mess:

1. These are athletes. Shouldn't there be some locker room scenes, or at least some shirtless workouts?

2. In a tv series about cricket players, shouldn't there be some scenes with them playing cricket?