Girlfriend and ma

So this is a story about India and Australia, playing a cricket Test in Adelaide. Harbhajan Singh comes out to bat, and Shane Warne's going to be bowling to him. Now Warne wants to get under Bhajji's skin, so he has consulted a local Punjabi friend (there being plenty of Punjabis in Adelaide) and by-hearted a few choice sentences, Jalandhar accent in place.

Warne baffles Bhajji with his first few leg-spinning balls. At the end of the over, he strolls up to Bhajji and says in that Jalandhar Punjabi: "My girlfriend can bat better than you can!"

Bhajji is startled by this -- Warne saying this stuff, and in chaste (well, maybe not so chaste) Punjabi? But before he can react, Warne goes on, still in Punjabi, now with that broad Warne smile: "And my ma, she bowls better than you!"

A good story, no? No? You're laughing, no? No?

Well, anyway, it's completely untrue. I just made it up. But if you interchange Bhajji and Warne in it, interchange Punjabi and English, the story you get is true. What's more, it is delightful enough to prompt the descriptions "LOL" and "hilarious". (I found it hilarious).

Now I have nothing against or for sledging, or these kinds of taunts: if some guys do it in cricket, I see nothing wrong in others doing it back.

But I wonder: why is the story hilarious one way (Bhajji needling Warne), but not the other (Warne needling Bhajji)? Put it another way, if my story was true, would it have appeared somewhere under the title "LOL"? Any thoughts?