Hazr: "They caught us off guard with their strategies"

It was a hard pill to swallow for Bad News Kangaroos as they are out of the running in the Skyesports Grand Slam 2024, after a 2-1 loss to Gods Reign. After the game, we caught up with Hazr to talk about what led to their shortcoming despite a 13-1 victory in the first map Nuke. Here is what he had to say.

You guys started incredibly on Nuke. But then on Anubis, you had a rough T-side, which is probably the most T-sided map in the current map pool. What do you think went wrong on your T side?

Yeah, I think we weren't expecting how they played. They caught us off guard with their strategies. We couldn't read their numbers on the map, which definitely caught us off guard. And then, it just rolled from there. We couldn't chain together rounds enough, which ruined us in the end. If you have a bad T side on Anubis, it's pretty rough for the CT side.

And Inferno, I mean, it was much closer than even the score is. You guys also seemed to have the right stacks on the sides, with an additional man sometimes. But still, it just went their way. What was happening? Was there some internal miscommunication?

There definitely were some miscommunications in some situations. It is definitely quite hard to hear on stage sometimes. Obviously, at a LAN event, you have to be yelling and stuff. But apart from that, I think we just missed a lot of good chances and didn't capitalize on them. We failed to secure the kills that we needed to. It was a bit of an off day for us. And I think it's expected. If you have a substitute player, some days you'll be on a high note, and other days you'll be low.

Can you talk to us about the overall experience of playing at the LAN event in India? How was it for your team?

Yeah, it was most of our first time here in India, which is pretty crazy. I didn't expect Counter-Strike to take me to India, which is very cool. So it was cool to experience the culture. It was good that we had a veteran with us, yourwombat, who looked after us well and knew how to help us adapt, which was really very cool and fun.

And finally, let's talk about the AU CS and the Indian CS. What do you think is the biggest difference you've seen so far? You've played with the boys, scrimmed with them for some time, and played a couple of pro games as well.

Yeah, I think India has some good players. There's a lot of players here. I think if India has a lot of big opportunities for India, like Aus, we have T1 events like Pro League. I don't think India has that. So I believe to build the scene, you need some big opportunities in India. But, yeah, the difference is, I think they're less developed tactically because they don't have the chance to face top-tier teams. It's kind of like Australia in that sense. There aren't as many opportunities, and if you do get the chance, you're up against a tier 1 team and you get owned, so I think India's in a similar position. But yeah, I think we're all just trying to grow. Hopefully, everyone gets more opportunities, to be honest.