A relic of Australian cricket’s storied past is set to be held for auction, as an old Baggy Green worn by Sir Donald Bradman goes under the hammer in Sydney this week. One of the greatest cricketers in the history of the sport, Bradman’s cap is expected to earn between USD 195,000 to 260,000, or in other words, potentially over INR 2 crore.
The Baggy Green is the one worn by Bradman during the home series against India in 1947/48, which is significant in history for being India’s first overseas tour as an independent nation. Significant for India’s history, it also is a memorable one for Australian history, with Bradman piling on a whopping 715 runs in just six innings, including three centuries and a double century.
The cap is not in pristine condition by any means, with age and use on the field meaning it is slightly tattered with signs of damage and wear, including insect damage and faded colour. Nevertheless, auction house Bonhams expects the cap to garner roughly 200,000 US dollars at the auction.
The baggy green's historic significance
The baggy green was on show for viewing in Melbourne and Sydney over the last two weeks, with interested parties and the public alike given a chance to look at a crucial piece of Australia’s cricket history. With the Indian team currently in Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, it might have served as an opportunity to be reminded of the long history the two teams share down under.
India travelled to Australia less than two months after the nation's independence, and Bradman held off his retirement to honour the moment, writing in his autobiography Farewell to Cricket: “Believing that the season against India in 1947-8 would be less exacting and that now I was better able to stand up to it, I again felt it my duty to play this one season, especially as it was to be the first tour of Australia by an Indian team."
{{/usCountry}}India travelled to Australia less than two months after the nation's independence, and Bradman held off his retirement to honour the moment, writing in his autobiography Farewell to Cricket: “Believing that the season against India in 1947-8 would be less exacting and that now I was better able to stand up to it, I again felt it my duty to play this one season, especially as it was to be the first tour of Australia by an Indian team."
{{/usCountry}}Bradman would play his final Test in the following year's Ashes, at the Oval in London. Needing just 4 runs to finish his career with an average of 100, Bradman was infamously and surprisingly dismissed for a second-ball duck to leave his average at that number so important to cricket history, 99.94.
This is not the first time that Bradman’s baggy greens have been put up for auction, with his debut cap from 1928 having been auctioned for USD 290,000 in 2020, where it was purchased by Peter Freedman, founder of popular audioware brand Rode Microphones, in 2020.
The mark for auctioned cricket memorabilia stands with Shane Warne’s baggy green, with the Aussie leg-spin legend having donated his debut cap for auction in 2020 to help with Australian bushfire relief. That cap sold for USD 650,000 to Australian banking conglomerate Commonwealth Bank, with the money heading towards an important climate cause ahead of Warne’s untimely death in 2022.