Wore the cap during India’s 1947-48 tour of Australia, his last Test series on home soil. A “baggy green\” Test cap worn by Australian great Don Bradman sold for $250,000 at auction yesterday as collectors vied to own a rare piece of cricketing history.
The ragged, sun-faded garment dated back nearly 80 years to Bradman’s playing time and showed signs of “insect damage\,” although its torn peak was nowhere nearly as badly damaged.
The auction house Bonhams says Bradman wore the cap during India’s 1947-48 tour of Australia, his last Test series on home soil.
Within a 10-minute sale, frantic bidding sent the hammer price soaring from an opening of $160,000 to a successful bid of $250,000 (Aus$390,000). With “buyer’s premium” fees added, the price was $310,000.
It is the only known baggy green Bradman wore during the series, in which, according to Bonhams, he scored 715 runs in six innings at an average of 178.75, with three centuries and a double-hundred.
The dark green woolen caps awarded to Australia’s cricketers before Test debuts are held in great reverence by players and fans. Often, the more battered, the better.
Another of Bradman’s “baggy greens,” which he wore during his Test debut in 1928, fetched $290,000 when sold in 2020. That was much less than the $650,000 paid for Shane Warne’s baggy green when he sold it earlier that year to help victims of the Australian bushfires.
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.”
