Australia’s great batsman Sir Don Bradman is no longer in this world, but his influence still remains among cricket fans. About 70 years ago, Don Bradman was the uncrowned king of the cricket world. His statistics show what his game might have been like. Even after 7 decades of leaving cricket and two and a half decades of saying goodbye to this world, his popularity is still quite high. This is the reason why the ‘baggy green’ cap worn during the home Test series against India in 1947-48 was sold for $ 4.60 lakh (about Rs 4 crore 22 lakh) in the Gold Coast auction on Monday.
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Bradman had presented this cap to Indian player Sriranga Vasudev Sohoni during that series. Sohoni’s family preserved it for the last 75 years and it was never displayed publicly. Sold by ‘Lloyds Auctions’, this baggy green has the ‘Coat of Arms’ of Australian cricket and ‘1947-48’ embroidered below it. The India-Australia Test series 1947-48 was Bradman’s last home Test series. He then retired from cricket in 1948 with an average of 99.94. He is considered the greatest batsman in the history of the game. India made its first Test tour as an independent nation for this series. The Indian team, led by Lala Amarnath, faced the strong Australian team led by Bradman in a five-match series. Australia won the series 4-0, with one match being a draw. Describing the cap as the “Holy Grail of cricket”, Lee Hames, chief operating officer of Lloyd’s Auctioneers and Valuers, said during the auction that Sohoni’s “last wish was that the cap remain with Australia.” According to the ‘Guardian’ report, Hames said, “It was kept hidden for 75 years. It was kept under lock and key for three generations. A spokesman for Lloyd’s Auctions said that it will now be displayed in a major museum. According to the report, the auction bid started at one dollar and was sold for $4.60 lakh amid strong interest from buyers from Australia, India and Britain. According to it, “This cap, kept by the same family for 75 years, symbolizes the association with Don Bradman’s invincible era and the memorable exchanges with the Indian team.” At present only 11 ‘Baggy Green’ caps of Bradman are known. In that era, Test cricketers were given a different cap for each series. Bradman’s first baggy green of 1928 sold for US$4.50 lakh in 2020, while a cap from the 1948 England tour was auctioned for US$4.25 in 2003. A “sun-faded and worn” ‘baggy green’ of Bradman’s was sold for US$479,700 in 2024, the highest price ever for a cap worn by him. Has the highest price. The all-time record for ‘baggy green’ is held by Shane Warne’s cap, which sold for $1,007,500 in 2020 for Australian Red Cross ‘bushfire’ relief.
