“The history of the world,” wrote Thomas Carlyle, “is but the biography of great men.” Carlyle held that history is determined by the actions of a handful of heroes. And if his ideas have been discredited since, in sport, at least, they’ve still some truth to them. As Matthew Engel wrote of Shane Warne’s performance in that Ashes match at Adelaide in 2006, for four days the Test looked set to “dribble away to an inevitable draw. Then came the Great Man.” That same week in December 2006, 6,000 miles away across the Indian Ocean, another Great Man of the game was in action. Though no one would have guessed his future from his fortune. MS Dhoni made 44 off 49 balls against South Africa at Centurion, a match India lost by nine wickets.
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