Hidden for 75 years, Don Bradman's baggy green gifted to Indian player goes for record price at auction

A Don Bradman baggy green cap from the 1947-48 series sold for A$460,000, the highest price for a Bradman cap.

For 75 years, it sat out of sight — a small, dark-green relic of cricket history, handled with the kind of caution usually reserved for jewellery or heirloom letters. On Sunday, that secrecy ended in spectacular fashion when a Don Bradman baggy green, worn during the 1947-48 series against India, went under the hammer in Australia.

Sir Donald Bradman and his Baggy Green. (X Images)

The cap sold for A$460,000 (£232,000), the highest price ever fetched by a Bradman-worn cap. Once the 16.5% buyer’s premium of A$75,900 was added, the final amount paid rose to A$535,900.

What makes this one different isn’t just the number — it’s the journey. Bradman had given the cap to India all-rounder Sriranga Wasudev Sohoni, and Sohoni’s family preserved it for the past 75 years. One of just 11 Bradman-worn baggy greens known to exist, it had never previously been on public display.

Lloyds Auctioneers and Valuers, which conducted the sale, revealed just how tightly the family protected it. “That’s over three generations under lock and key. If you were a family member you were only allowed to look at it when you were 16-years-old for five minutes,” said Lee Hames, the company’s chief operating officer.

The cap was bought by an anonymous bidder, but it won’t vanish back into private storage. It will be kept on display at an Australian museum, ensuring a piece of Bradman’s legacy becomes a public artefact for the first time.

Unlike some memorabilia that survives only in fragments, this cap is in good condition. Inside, it carries inscriptions that tie the story together in ink as well as memory: “D.G. Bradman” and “S.W. Sohoni”.

Its final price also pushed it beyond the previous record holder — another baggy green from the same 1947-48 series sold in 2024 for A$479,700 including buyer’s premium. That cap, however, was sun-faded and insect-damaged, making the condition and provenance of the Sohoni cap even more striking to collectors.

The baggy green remains one of Australia’s defining Test symbols. In Bradman’s era, players were issued a fresh cap for each series; in modern times, Test debutants receive one cap for their entire career.

The series itself was historic on multiple levels. It was Bradman’s last on home soil, and he dominated it: 715 runs in six innings at an average of 178.75, with three centuries, including his 100th first-class hundred, plus a double-hundred as Australia won 4-0. For India, it was their first international tour as an independent country.

Don Bradman, who died in 2001 aged 92, is still widely regarded as cricket’s greatest batter, finishing with a Test average of 99.94 from 52 matches. Sohoni played four Tests for India and died in 1993 aged 75.