It used to be that becoming the greatest in the world at your sport was something you pursued privately, individually, obsessively, and in a markedly low-tech manner. Don Bradman famously played no competitive cricket as a child. Instead, he spent hours throwing a golf ball at a curved irregular brick wall in his back garden and hitting it on the rebound with a cricket stump. Among other things, this gave him an extraordinary ability to react very quickly to uneven bounce, which probably accounts in part for the fact that any discussion of the greatest batsman ever is a pointless exercise.

If we judge batsmen by their average runs scored, then competition is very fierce through the ages. 45 batsmen in the history of test cricket have averaged 50 or more. 44 of them average between 50.06 and 62.66 runs, which is very respectable. And then there is Bradman, so far out on his own that he doesn’t really belong on the same chart, with a test average of 99.94. Here’s a thousand words-worth of graph to hammer the point home:

The real picture is actually even more dramatic than that. Can any of you cricket fans name the batsman with the second highest average? It’s actually PHKS Mendis of Sri Lanka, and, if you didn’t get that right, it will be partly because Mendis, in common with the next three names on the list, played fewer than 24 tests. You have to go down to No 7 Sutcliffe to find another batsman who played a statistically significant number of tests.

So that’s what used to be. Spend 12 years in your back garden with a golf ball and a stump, and, if you have the innate ability to build on, you may just end up existing in a league of your own.

Needless to say, those days are long gone. In the modern world, sports teams, and individual sports stars, hire managers and trainers and separate coaches for each set of skills, and dieticians and physiotherapists and psychotherapists and doctors and witch doctors and goodness knows what else.

In the world of motor sports, of course, we are well used to this obsessive attention being lavished not only on the players but also on the machines, and the F1 competition is arguably as much about technology as it is about driving talent and skill. The same is true, of course, of cycling, yachting, and, to a lesser degree, any sport that uses equipment.

The dramatic improvements in personal best times in swimming in the 2010s were all attributable to developments in swimsuits. First, variable elasticity of the material compressed the body, making it more streamlined and hydrodynamic. Then, newly developed water-resistant microfilament fabrics reduced drag by up to 8%. The use of bonded rather than sewn seams reduced drag by a further 6%. The impact that this had on the 2009 World Swimming Championship times was such that one particular full-body suit was banned by the sports’ authorities in 2010.

You may also remember the Nike Vaporfly controversy. In case you don’t, we are talking about a running shoe whose advanced technology, specifically carbon fiber plates and specialized foam (don’t ask me; I just google this stuff) gave runners a significant advantage in bounce off the track. The shoe, basically, was providing some of the energy that would otherwise be provided by the athlete’s muscles.

You can, of course, argue that all of these are examples of difference in degree and not kind, and that equipment developments have always enhanced and will always enhance performance. If the developments are open to all, they should be welcomed. Faster running track surfaces are an example of an even playing field. (Did you like what I did there?)

Certainly, the modern cricket bat has effectively brought the boundary rope ever closer to the batsman’s crease, as the number of 6’s scored in the average innings these days will testify. Mind you, Gary Sobers’ performance for Notts against Glamorgan at the beautiful, and now sadly no-longer, St Helens’ ground, hitting Malcolm Nash for six sixes in a single over in 1968, still stands supreme, considering the bat he was using. St Helen’s was, it is fair to say, a bijou ground, but nevertheless what an achievement!

Welcoming back my readers from beyond the reach of the old empire and the greatest game: If you’ve ever upgraded your tennis racquet or sports shoes, after an embarrassingly long time, you will doubtless have experienced first-hand the impact of advancing technology. For those of us who don’t change our car every three years, it is much the same experience, something akin to suddenly finding yourself in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

You may, by now, be wondering what has set me off on this flight of fancy. Well, it is the news that I read today that science is currently engaged in pushing back the boundaries of sport in ways that I wasn’t previously aware of. Gabriel Vichera was a biotech doctoral student in 2010, when his attention was caught by a story about a cloned polo horse that had been sold for $800,000.

Polo is, of course, an elitist sport that attracts many wealthy players, not least in Argentina, and cloning, typically from highly valued polo ponies, had been developing since 2003 in Argentina. Vichera founded a company, Kheiron Biotech, with financial backing, and is now breeding and selling cloned horses, at an average of $40,000 dollars a horse. This year the company expects to produce 400 horses by cloning.

However, the interesting part of this story is that the company is also conducting research into gene editing. The company is using a technology known as CRISPR, which works like genetic scissors. (I told you not to ask me!) They are experimenting with reducing the body’s expression of the myostatin gene, a gene that limits muscle growth, with the aim of producing a polo pony that is unnaturally fast and strong.

The sports’ authorities have not yet authorised the introduction of genetically engineered ponies into the sport. What is clear is that many polo pony breeders are, understandably, very much against the development, which may produce stock that is both more improved than breeding techniques can ever hope to achieve, and that is ‘brought to market’ very much faster.

So here is a subtle philosophical question. Polo pony breeders use scientific knowledge gained over generations (and also their intuitive gut feelings) in an attempt to engineer, through selective breeding, polo ponies that are closer to the ideal. Is the use of cloning technology qualitatively different from that, or is it just a more modern iteration of it? And, today’s big question, is genetic engineering through CRISPR qualitatively or only quantitively different?

And, for those of you looking for a plotline for your next thriller, is a mad scientist somewhere, as we speak, applying CRISPR technology to produce the next heavyweight boxing champion of the world?

Let us end with a couple of reminders of times when the world of sports was more innocent, and certainly less driven. Angela Mortimer died last week. She won the Wimbledon Ladies Singles title in 1961, beating crowd favourite Christine Truman in the first all-British final since 1914 (and, to date, the last). As well as holding the trophy for a year, she also won a £20 voucher for Lillywhites, a West End sports shop, equivalent to just under £400 (1800 shekels, $535) today. This year, Iga Świątek won £3 million. Yes, but is she happy?

And finally, it is fair to say that the England cricket team of the 1980s lacked something of the dedication and discipline of more recent years (although the early 2000s had some characters as well). Allan Lamb, a magnificent batsman and a real character, recalled this week playing a tour match against Western Australia.

The Americas Cup was being held in nearby Fremantle, and one evening, after a day’s cricket, several team members met up with the English sailing team, who were sponsored by a whisky distiller. Ian Botham was involved in a whisky drinking contest, among other pranks, and was so hungover the following day that when he went out to bat he forgot to take his bat with him, and someone had to run out to the middle with it. However, being Botham, he still managed to top score with 48 off 38 balls. Golden days!

Join me next week for, possibly, another self-inulgent nostalgic wallow in another part of the gene pool. Or, just possibly, something completely different.