A ‘baggy green’ Test cap worn by Australian great Donald Bradman traded for US $250,000 at auction yesterday as collectors competed to own a rare piece of cricketing history.
The tattered garment – almost 80 years old – was sun-faded, showed signs of ‘insect damage’ and had a torn peak. Auction house Bonhams said Bradman wore the cap throughout India’s 1947-48 tour of Australia, his last Test series on home soil.
In an auction lasting 10 minutes, a flurry of bidding pushed the price from a starting point of US $160,000 to a winning offer of US $250,000.
The total cost was US $310,000 once ‘buyer’s premium’ fees were tacked on.
Bonhams said it was ‘the only known baggy green’ worn by Bradman throughout the series, in which he scored 715 runs in six innings at an average of 178.75, with three centuries and a double-hundred.
Australia’s cricketers are given the dark green woollen caps before Test debuts and they are revered by players and fans alike; often the more battered the better.
A different ‘baggy green’ worn by Bradman during his Test debut in 1928 fetched US $290,000 when it went under the hammer in 2020.
That was far less than the US $650,000 rewarded for Shane Warne’s baggy green when he put it up for sale to help Australian bushfire victims previously that year.
Bradman retired with an all-time-high Test batting average of 99.94 and has been described by cricket authority Wisden as the greatest to ‘have ever graced the gentleman’s game.’ He pass away in 2001 aged 92.
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