Pelé, Diego Maradona, Johan Cruyff, Brian Lara, David Gower, John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova and Babe Ruth. Along with about 10% of the world’s population, all these sporting greats have one thing in common: they are, or were, left-handed. Professional sport seems to be biased in favour of lefties. This is most pronounced in fencing, where they currently make up more than 40% of top-class competitors. It is also significant in boxing, cricket, judo, karate, tennis and table tennis.

There is some evidence that left-handers enjoy innate advantages over their peers. In 2006 a study at the Australian National University discovered that left-handers think more quickly when playing computer games and sports. The connections between their left and right brain hemispheres were faster than those of right-handed subjects, and they found it easier to use the whole brain to work on a task.

This disparity is not enough to account for the success of left-handed sportsmen, though, since they do not excel in those events that are most purely a matter of hand-eye co-ordination or reaction times, such as darts or goalkeeping.

For the most part, the explanation for lefties’ success is the very fact that they are in a minority. According to researchers at France’s Institute of Evolutionary Sciences, the reason for lefties’ advantage in sport — and the continued existence of lefties in the gene pool — is quite sinister. They found the murder rate was higher in tribal societies that had more left-handers.

They reasoned that since the left-handed assailant’s opponent would be more used to facing right-handed opponents, his attack would be more likely to be successful. The same rationale, the so-called ‘‘fight hypothesis’’, follows for why left-handers have an advantage in certain sports where one-on-one confrontations occur.

However, there is one sport in which left-handers will never best their rivals. In 1975 the polo authorities prohibited wielding the mallet in the left hand, for reasons of safety.

Extracted from Who Would Win a Fight Between Muhammad Ali and Bruce Lee? The Sports Fan’s Book of Answers, by Nicholas Hobbes, published by Atlantic Books at £7.99. Copies can be ordered for £7.59 with free delivery from The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0845 271 2135

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