The combination of Sir Donald Bradman’s fabled brilliance and the baggy green’s near-mythical status has persuaded an Australian to part with nearly half-a-million dollars for one of the Don’s Test caps.
Unlike modern Australian players the Test cricketers of Bradman’s era wore a different cap for each series, so the one worn by Bradman during the 1947-48 home summer against India is far from unique, but it has nevertheless sold at auction for $479,700, a record for a cap worn by the great batter.
The sum is less than half that raised when Shane Warne’s cap was sold in aid of emergency services responding to the 2019-20 bushfires, which was bought by the Commonwealth Bank for $1,007,500, but Warne only wore the one cap.
Bradman’s first cap, from his 1928 debut season, was sold for $450,000 in 2020 and the one he wore on his last tour, to England in 1948, went for $425,000 in 2003 – and was later resold for around $400,000 in 2008.
Bradman wore the baggy green sold on Tuesday in Sydney during India’s first tour as an independent country, and his last on home soil.
He scored 715 runs in six innings at an average of 178.75, becoming the only Australian player to score 100 first-class centuries during the process, as Australia won 4-0.
At the tour’s end Bradman gave the cap to the Indian team manager, Pankaj Gupta, who passed it on to his nephew-in-law, the team’s wicket keeper PK Sen.
It was purchased by the current owner in 2003, Bonhams Sydney said. It had been on loan to the Bradman Museum in the player’s home town of Bowral since 2010 and was sold as a single star lot to an Australian bidder in the room.
It was bought for $390,000 before the addition of a buyer’s premium was added to the fee.
The cap was described by the auction house as “sun faded and worn”, with “some insect damage” and “some loss to edge of peak”.
“This very special baggy green has been part of cricket and sporting heritage for decades,” said Bonham’s senior specialist Alex Clark.
Bradman, who died in 2001 at the age of 92, is recognised as cricket’s greatest batter after averaging 99.94 in his 52-Test career.
