The baggy green cap worn by Sir Donald Bradman during India’s first tour as an independent nation has changed hands for AU$460,000, with the buyer choosing to stay anonymous. The sale took place on Monday via Lloyds Auctions on the Gold Coast.
“It has been hidden for 75 years, that’s over three generations under lock and key,” said Lee Hames, the company’s chief operating officer. He went on to call the cap the “holy grail of cricket”, adding, “If you were a family member you were only allowed to look at it when you were 16 years old for five minutes.”
Key details first. Bradman used the cap in the 1947-48 home series against India – the last Test campaign he played on Australian soil. After the series, he handed it to India’s opening bowler Ranga Sohoni, a gesture that reflected the respect between the teams. Sohoni’s descendants have safeguarded the cap ever since and had never put it on public view until now.
The inside of the cap carries both men’s names – “D.G. Bradman” and “S.W. Sohoni” – and the season “1947-48” sits neatly below the Australian coat of arms. Cricket historians reckon only 11 Bradman baggy greens survive, partly because players in that era tended to receive a fresh cap for each series rather than one for an entire career.
Although Sohoni bowled the very first delivery of India’s post-colonial Test era, his personal impact on the tour was limited: one match, no wickets, and an innings defeat. The cap, though, has outlasted any scorecard.
For context, Bradman’s debut cap from 1928 fetched AU$450,000 when it last surfaced on the market in 2020. The overall record remains Shane Warne’s cap, which raised just over AU$1 million for bushfire relief the same year.
Auction houses expect interest in vintage cricket gear to keep growing, though most pieces with Bradman’s name attached already reside in museums or private collections unlikely to sell. That scarcity, not to mention the story behind this particular cap, explains why someone was ready to part with nearly half a million dollars.
