Mohammad Azhar Ansari is a 24-year-old professional gamer from South Africa who recently participated in an international e-sports championship with his team, representing South Africa in Casablanca, Morocco, from17 to 22 August . The team competed in Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB), a popular MOBA game played on mobile devices, where the objective is to destroy the enemy’s base while defending their own.
“Players control unique heroes with different abilities, working together strategically, using tactics to gain an advantage over the opposing team. The goal is to destroy enemy turrets and ultimately their base to win the match.In the game, two teams of five players each compete to destroy the enemy’s base while defending their own,” he explained.
Azhar, known by his in-game alias “Doofenshmirts,” plays the roamer role in MLBB, focusing on supporting allies and disrupting enemy movements. He said despite initial hesitation due to his age, he embraced the opportunity to compete internationally for the first time.
“I was a bit hesitant to take up the opportunity to play internationally because at my age, players in professional e-sports are already retiring. Here I am going for it for the first time, nevertheless for a first international tournament, I’m quite happy with our performance, I made many new friends from different countries, and it made us hungry to improve ourselves and compete for South Africa once again.”
Azhar is also involved in growing the e-sports community in South Africa. He works at a family store in Durban and organises both private and public tournaments with a colleague for MLBB. They aim to expand their efforts to include other game titles and grow the e-sports scene in the country.
He said he acknowledges the challenges faced by his team, such as limited tournament opportunities and scheduling conflicts that hinder regular practice. However, he is optimistic about the future, expressing gratitude for the support from the Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA) and their development programmes, which help aspiring gamers pursue careers in e-sports.
The AEC’s, are quite a big deal. “It was just a stepping stone to the main stage which is going to be held in November if I’m not mistaken, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately my team did not qualify for the main stage, but the male and female Counter Strike teams have qualified for the main stage, picking up first place and second place respectively.
He said since they decided to compete in tournaments they have faced many challenges over the years. “We didn’t have tournaments going on, so many players didn’t have a reason to keep playing the game, so they just left, that’s true for my team as well, as I’ve mentioned the case for Bali 2022. Even recently we faced challenges before the AEC 2024, where we generally couldn’t get the full team online to practice because of work hours and studies. We did what we could to prepare, which included just developing individual skills, and thankfully, it somewhat worked out,” he said.
Azhar remains hopeful and determined to accomplish more in the international gaming arena, highlighting the importance of talent and access to good equipment for aspiring professional gamers.
“Even though we didn’t really get to a good position in terms of the tournament, we went head to head with the Tunisian team, which are one of the strongest teams in the continent, Egypt was also in our group, they are by far the best team in Africa right now. So with those two teams in our group, it was a little bit difficult to qualify. I think the only reason why we weren’t able to, is mostly due to the lack of experience we have for fighting international teams.”
“We are definitely looking to accomplish many things over the next few years, now that we have the opportunity to go international,” he added.
Azhar said ability is the main requirement for one to be a professional sports gamer. “A lot of people don’t really have access to good equipment such as mobile phones or gaming PC’s, so even if they had the talent to be one of the best players in the world, they’d never know. That’s why I really like that MSSA has development programmes, where we can fund money into a development programme of our choice to help those who dream of pursuing this type of career.
He said he would like to thank MSSA for giving his team the opportunity to participate in these international events.
