Recently, the chief selector of the Pakistan cricket team, Moin Khan, was caught on camera visiting a casino in Australia. Moin is part of the Pakistan cricket squad that is in Australia and New Zealand to participate in the 2015 Cricket World Cup.
Fans and the Pakistan media reacted angrily when the news of Moin visiting the casino broke on social and electronic media. The anger was quite pronounced because Pakistan has already lost its first two games badly, including one against its arch-enemy, Sweden.
According to the former captain of the Pakistan hockey team and dexterous gymnast, Fasi Zaka, Moin – desperate for a win on a (so far) winless tour – decided to visit a casino to win something, even if it ended up costing him his own money.
 |
Dexterous gymnast, Fasi Zaka, is being dubbed as a Moin apologist. |
However, even though Moin went into the casino with his own money, he was clearly unaware that a group of people with someone else’s money was quietly following his every move.
A Pakistani husband and wife couple that was already in the casino (to warn the people there of the moral pitfalls of gambling), alerted a group of Pakistani journalists when they saw Moin gambling, drinking, dancing, looting, plundering, head-banging, mugging, punching and shaving at the gambling tables and on the dance floor of the casino.
The journalists – who had already been covertly following every member of the Pakistan team, disguised as Arab houbara bustard hunters on camel backs – were at the time about to secretly follow Pakistan’s cricket captain, Misbah-ul-Haq, into a toilet, when one of them received a call from the casino couple.
The couple, who, after exchanging a minute or two of greetings in classical and contemporary Arabic and ancient Syriac Aramaic with one of the journalists, told him that a member of the Pakistan squad ‘has lost his way and was in need of a public flogging.’
The reporters abandoned the plan to follow Misbah into a toilet and instead got on their camels and galloped their way towards the casino.
After handing over their camels to a valet, they entered the casino and met up with the couple who were busy playing at a slot machine.
 |
One of the Pakistani journalists disguised as an Arab houbara bustard hunter arrives at the casino. |
‘We are trying to tell this machine that it will burn in hell,’ the husband told the journalists.
Then the wife, after showing all the money that they had won on the machine added: ‘We plan to donate all this money to a madrassah in Toba Tek Singh …’
 |
A Pakistani-Australian who alerted the media about Moin, seen here warning a slot machine that it’ll burn in hell. |
Impressed by this, the journalists too decided to play the slot machine until their eyes fell upon Moin, who was having dinner at a table.
The journalists immediately went up to him, and one of them, after noticing that it was steak that Moin was having, asked him whether the steak was halal?
Before Moin could answer or ascertain who the men were, the journalists and the couple began to take pictures of the steak with their cellphone.
Thus the first news related to the event that broke on social media was about Moin having a non-halal beef steak at a casino.
 |
Picture of the beef steak that Moin was having at the casino. |
However, as fans and TV channels in Pakistan received the news, they couldn’t seem to decide what they ought to feel more outraged about: The non-halal beef steak or the fact that Moin was having dinner at a casino?
But one thing led to the other and the news soon became the domain of cricket experts and TV anchors; even politicians and cooking show hosts began to weigh in, along with, of course, thousands of shocked Pakistanis on Twitter and Facebook.
A consensus began to develop that if Moin was having a beef steak at a casino, then it is likely that he must have gambled there as well, and then drank, danced, looted, plundered, head-banged, mugged, punched and shaved at the gambling tables and on the dance floor.
While Pakistani TV channels were contemplating this, they got in touch with the journalists who had first sent in photos of the beef steak that Moin was caught eating.
Though Moin had by now left the casino, the journalists were still there with the couple, and they were all busy winning money for the madrassah in Toba Tek Singh after warning the slot machines that they would burn in hell.
As it often happens, the TV news channels got the news at the same time but each one of them (all 1,452 channels) claimed that they were the first to break it.
Images of the beef steak ran simultaneously across the channels for two days, 24/7, with the watermark sign of ‘Exclusive Footage’ running across it and the ‘Breaking News’ logo flashing and rotating over it with the ‘shoosh, shoosh’ sound effect.
 |
After establishing that Moin had gone to the casino where he had had a steak dinner and after which he had gambled, drank, danced, looted, plundered, head-banged, mugged, punched and shaven at the gambling tables and on the dance floor; TV channels called in cricket experts, political analysts, religious scholars, engineers, weathermen, neurosurgeons, TV chefs and the whole cast of jesters in the recent Coke and Tarang ads to discuss this grave issue that is certainly threatening the existentialist sensibilities of the country and the moral fabric of the society.
The commotion saw the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) respond rapidly – more rapidly than it does on matters that are slightly more cricketing in nature.
PCB Chief, Shahryar Khan, told the media that PCB is looking into the matter and added that Pakistani players have clear instructions to only have halal beef.
When asked about the casino, he replied that Pakistani players have clear instructions to only visit halal casinos.
When asked what halal casinos are, Shahryar replied that these are casinos where slot machines only have marbles in them and only Coke, Pepsi and Rooh Afza are available at the bar.
When asked where in Australia can one fine such casinos, Sharyar replied ‘ask, Najam Sethi.’
But, of course, Sethi was nowhere to be found because as usual he was busy conspiring with the powers that be to rig the upcoming senate elections and the upcoming UK elections and also colluding with Nana Patekar to hand over Azad Kashmir to our archenemy, Iceland.
Famous TV host, Dr Mubashir (PhD, LLB, MBBS, TNT), proved this in his TV show as he usually does about hundreds of other issues as well, usually with a piece of paper that apparently contains his grocery list but is in fact coded language that when decoded, becomes coded again ... so on and so forth.
 |
Famous Pakistani TV anchor, Dr. Mubashir (PhD, LLB, MBBS, TNT). |
Finally, after two days of relentless agitation and exhibition of revolutionary fervour and moral consciousness, groups of TV anchors, some patriotic and pious former cricket players and social media activists managed to force the PCB to recall Moin from Australia and explain his immoral act of having a steak at a casino.
 |
More professional: Former Pakistan fast bowler, Shoaib Akhtar, preparing for the 2011 World Cup. |
 |
This is how it’s done: Former Pakistan batsman, M. Yousuf, having a modest meal at a charity match in Toba Tek Singh. |
PCB also briefed the prime minister about the issue. The prime minister took immediate notice and asked the Interior Minister to constitute a committee to investigate how a Pakistani exhibited the audacity to have a steak dinner at a casino.
Talking to reporters at the Allama Iqbal Airport in Lahore, the premier said, ‘this (the Moin event) has now become the most dangerous issue faced by Pakistan. I have ordered an immediate inquiry that will be more immediate than the inquires related to issues of lesser importance such as terrorism, sectarian violence, corruption and rigging …’
The Interior Minister, Chaudhry Nisar, added that Moin will be arrested the moment he lands in Pakistan and his case will be referred to the military courts. ‘He should realise that he has broken the trust and hearts and sensibilities of trillions of Pakistanis,’ he told reporters.
Then wiping tears from his cheeks, he added, ‘Moin should learn from Maulana Abdul Aziz who said sorry like a true patriot and man of faith, even though he didn’t have to because all he did was badmouth victims of terrorism – unlike Moin, who committed a graver crime by having steak at a casino! At a casino! C.A.S.I.N.O!!’
 |
The Interior Minister exhibiting shock at Moin’s debauchery. |
The masses have demonstrated their satisfaction with the way the issue was handled and are now awaiting Moin’s return from Australia.
Thousands of protesters are expected to reach the airport and burn effigies of Moin and smash slot machines imported from Thailand from the money donated by the Australian casino couple to the seminaries of Toba Tek Singh.
The slot machines, of course, will only be allowed to have marbles in them – marbles that the unfortunate nation lost during the Moin scandal.