Part of this was technical – Warne’s keen cricketing eye meant no batter could hide their faults, which he then announced like the news headlines – but the really special aspect was his mentality. What made Warne Warnie, though, was the charismatic, empathic intelligence that enabled him to detect artifice like a larrikin Hercule Poirot, reading people like he wrote them and taking immense pleasure in juxtaposing their weaknesses against his ingenuity. Warne realised that he had to impart as much spin as possible while bowling as fast as possible without the latter encumbering the former, and if he kept doing that while hammering the right spot, “natural variation” would eventually help him. Yes, ripping every delivery was a matter of principle and a lesson for life – take attacking options, always – but it was also the sensible course of action. However, while he needed the physical tools to twizzle the ball hard – so hard it would make a fizzing sound on release – there was much more to him than that, most particularly his rare ability to see simplicity. At the start of his career he was not unlike TMNTPETPUAC, his scorching skill distracting from the subtler aspects of his ludicrousness as, thanks to painter’s hands, crocodile-wrestler’s arms and an executioner’s nerve, he reinvented the art of leg-spin. If O’Sullivan’s genius is doing things perfectly, Shane Warne’s was appraising people perfectly. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images 2) Shane Warne Ronnie O’Sullivan acknowledges the crowd during the 2022 World Championship final, which he won to equal Stephen Hendry’s modern record of seven world titles. But at 47 he is resolved to enjoy his gifts, sharing the joy of himself for as long as possible. It took him a while to come to terms with it understandably so – who didn’t act up in their 20s, even without the aggravating factors of talent, fame and money? – and his quest for perfection continues through the illusory pursuit of the elusive cue-action.

This is possible only because he is kinder to himself now, finding an emotional equilibrium that has intensified his genius yet further.

His ability to assess a table, then calculate the correct order in which to eliminate the balls before easing them away via a variety of gentle cannons and subtle screws – consider this epochal 92 in the 2012 World Championship final – is like Christopher Wren first designing St Paul’s Cathedral, then building it himself. What sets him apart these days, though, is not his power and flair but the stratospheric bottom and modal levels facilitated by clear thought and precise touch – only he could ask the prize for a maximum after sinking the first black, then make one. It was understandable too, the young Ronnie confronted by the awesome responsibility of his awesomeness while also processing some mind-bogglingly awful domestic disruption. In his younger days he was principally about the pyrotechnics, ripping out runs and blazing home long pots – consider his 128 in the 1996 Masters, or the above-mentioned maxi that came a year later – stamping about the genius/madness precipice and exuding dissatisfaction with himself, his game and the world. He happens to be a snooker player, but in a sense it barely matters while, of course, mattering absolutely, because that feeling of watching him – of import, of uniqueness, of transcendence, speaking to the world but also directly to us, personally – glorifies our species and caresses our soul. In theory, “The Most Naturally Talented Player Ever To Pick Up A Cue” (TMNTPETPUAC) is too mealy-mouthed to become nickname or cliche, yet Ronnie made it so because his inspirational separateness needs noting over and over again. Nor is it just Hendry who speaks of Ronnie in such terms. But it is one sign: the ability to differentiate from everyone else who’s ever done something, by making it seem the most natural thing in the world – Whitney singing, say, or Ronnie razzing out a five-minute, eight-second 147 – universal first-name terms being another indicator of unusual luminosity. Effortlessness is not an essential characteristic of genius – Hendry is one too, yet made playing snooker look harder than a diamond with a flick knife smoking an Embassy No 1 while spitting through its teeth.

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