"I don't think I want my name attached to this," said the 20-something university student who claimed to be the admin of BSPN.

After some intense negotiations, it was decided that the individual in question would show this writer the admin panel of his Facebook page. Once it was sufficiently verified that I was, in fact, talking to one of two people behind BSPN, the Facebook page that has made thousands of fans laugh at their own misery during this World Cup, I had to ask, how did BSPN come about?

"This page used to be called 'Wolves Shomorthok Goshthi Bangladesh', a satirical page focused on football. But we found the culture around football and its fans a bit difficult to deal with, so we stopped. Then I opened a different page, called BNN, where the theme was satirical news based on universities and university students. After that, I saw some Instagram pages based on American sports where they posted fake quotes, and that gave me the idea to make something similar here. At first, we posted about both football and cricket, but as it turned out, people can't discern between real quotes from footballers and the fake ones we made. With cricket, it was different, people understand cricket better. We Bangladeshis are obsessed with cricket anyway, so it had a good chance of working," he said.

And it did work, BSPN has nearly 90 thousand followers on Facebook, and some of their recent posts during the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2023 gathered tens of thousands of reactions and shares. So, how does social media validation feel for BSPN's admins?

"It gives us a false sense of accomplishment. It's false because when the page is doing well and our posts are going viral, our real life productivity goes down, and we don't consider the social media stuff real," he said.

But running a satirical page with fake quotes has its risks, especially among the sensitive Bangladeshi cricket fanbase.

"Oftentimes, we get ideas for captions and posts that we know are smart, that we know will be good satire, but we have to refrain from posting them as it might be too close to reality. So, we go for something over the top, something outrageous, so that all fans are able to tell that it's fake and meant to amuse instead of inform," he said.

BSPN makes sure to never mention players by name, using made up names that are somewhat similar to the players' real names. This helps to create a distance from real news that the admins think is important to maintain.

While the laughter comes at the expense of cricketers and the national team, the admin maintains that they are fans of the cricket team, like the rest of us.

When asked if the page has been a way for them to cope with the horrible losses during this World Cup, the admin said, "Of course. When Bangladesh loses badly or something outrageous happens, that's when the scope for banter arises, and that helps us cope as fans. We wouldn't engage in banter about the team if they were playing good cricket. In fact, before the World Cup, our page had strong opinions on Mahmudullah Riyad, that he should be dropped. But his performances made us change our opinions, we don't make fun of Mahmudullah Riyad when he plays well. The same goes for the national team."

The made-up names and characters that BSPN uses to refer to real life players, and many of the posts that are made about them can be categorised as satire of a rather obvious nature. Yet, because of the large fanbase of cricket in Bangladesh, there may remain the risk that these jokes are misinterpreted as disrespect towards some of the country's most respected athletes.

"I don't think any disrespect is meant by the things we post about them, because when they play well, we are also the first ones to shower praise. As public figures, they open themselves up to criticism, and I believe the things we post don't cross that line. If everything went right with Bangladesh cricket all of a sudden and the team started winning, we would use our meme page to praise and elevate our players even more. We have done that in the past and people absolutely love it," he said.

The performance at this year's World Cup did open up opportunities for criticism, and for the admin of BSPN, this was the "most disappointing team" in memory.

"Growing up, I don't remember being this disappointed by the team at any point. Bangladesh have played badly and lost before, but this team has no perfect eleven that can be confident about winning. And this situation isn't going to change unless big changes are made, or things are fixed in the domestic circuit. So the depression related to being a Bangladesh cricket fan will last."

But are regular fans aware of these issues surrounding Bangladesh cricket? And is BSPN and its satire able to get people talking about the real problems?

"I think so. We have made posts bashing the standard of first-class cricket, the lack of facilities in grassroots cricket, and the bias in selection that exists at different levels. People understand these things and satire is a good medium to get the points across. Of course, in-depth analysis and higher-quality discourse does exist, especially on social media. But most people don't want to read 1,000-word posts. It's easier to make people take notice with a catchy caption and some graphics," he said.

So, does BSPN have any future aspirations following their success and Bangladesh's failure during this World Cup?

"Honestly, we just post when we're stressed. When I watch a game, things feel ridiculous, and there's a joke in my head, I just pull up my laptop and make something up. At one point, when BNN was around, there were thoughts of a whole group of satirical Facebook pages. But I realised that would take way too much time and effort, and it would hamper my studies. Plus, the risk of social media addiction is also real, and I don't want to subject ourselves to that. With BSPN, we will just keep posting as long as we need a platform to express our stressful thoughts through jokes, and at some point, it will fizzle out," he said.