It is a measure of the individual statures of Steve and Mark Waugh, who turn sixty today, that you could write about one without even mentioning the other. Although you really shouldn’t. Because think of it. Twins occur roughly one in 250 births. What are the odds on the same womb at the same time producing 0.004 per cent of all Australian male Test cricketers of the last century and a half?

It surprises me that we learned to take this for granted. We never even ran the pair together - a la Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, who through repetition became ‘Warnanmcgrar’ - despite their composing eighteen per cent of the Australian XIs in which they both featured. We developed instead the lazy habit of contradistinction: Steve the gritty, Mark the flamboyant, even when Steve exhibited flair and Mark determination. Between them, they represented Australia almost nine hundred times. Cricket’s other well-known twins, the Marshalls, Bedsers, Blackwells and Taylors, are simply not in the race. Imagine had there been a Dicky as well as a Ricky Ponting, both equally brilliant - that’s what we’re talking about.