"Based upon studies conducted, It is believed that the Domestication of cats took place in two strains. But the common ancestor is the North African and Southwest Asian Wildcat. Felis silvestris lybica (Ottoni and others 2017). By studying ancient cat DNA from all over the world, the researchers found that cat domestication began in the Fertile Crescent (in the Neolithic period) and accelerated later in ancient Egypt (in the Classical period) (Ottoni and others 2017)."
https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/item/how-did-cats-become-domesticated/
Domesticated cats were created in labs just like the different variation of dogs. Let us understand something about nature and how nature naturally works, Nature does not do massive significant changes according to popular belief. All we have to do is take a look around and your eyes will show you proof. Nature creates different variation of species, plants and animals. But the common factor still remains the same in all the species. The variation created by nature serves some logical purpose. But variation created by men serves monetary and self-fulfillment purposes.
The Different variation in domesticated cats do not serve logical nature given purposes but the pleasure of man solely. So in my humble belief, I believe that domesticated cats were created by dissecting several strands from large wild cats such as leopards, tigers, lions, cougars etc. to create a much smaller and controllable animal.