Shoaib Akhtar was recently blasted for mocking the Pakistan cricket team on 'Comedy Nights with Kapil', a slapstick Indian television show which is popular in both India and Pakistan for the Bollywood celebs and crass jokes it has to offer.

A short video clip of the show — where Shoaib unabashedly joked about the age and poor English language skills of senior Pakistani players and officials — caused a viral stir on social media.

“If we add up Misbah's, Younis' and Afridi's ages, this team will itself be 150 years old,” Shoaib says, as the audience bursts into laughter. He brought up the Shabbir Ahmed slip-of-tongue — the "moisturiser" slip we have all heard about and laughed at. He giggled while Harbhajan Singh called Inzi lazy.

The internet may not have broken over his statements, but chest-thumping patriots' hearts did; from National Pride-Keeper Fakhr-e-Alam to Politically-Correct Umer Sharif and like-minded fellows on social media, plenty of scorn was heaped on Shoaib.

How dare he ridicule Pakistan on an Indian show?

Here is one possible explanation: he is one of us.

For those who haven't heard of the show, or wonder how popular it really is with our audience, this randomly selected clip of the show, featuring Kareena Kapoor and Imran Khan (actor, not cricketer), has a whopping 95,000 plus views.

Go figure. Most of us enjoy some cheap entertainment; the mindless, politically-incorrect 'fat' jokes; gender shaming and mock bullying that makes up a big chunk of Indian and Pakistani comedy.