A cap worn by Australian cricket legend Don Bradman has sold for 479,700 Australian dollars (£245,000) at an auction in Sydney.
Bradman wore the cap – known as 'Baggy Green' – in the 1947-48 home Test series against India, in which he scored his 100th first-class century.
Auction house cricket-tour-australian-baggy-green-test-cap-of-dark-green-wool-with-coat-of-arms-depicting-the-symbols-of-commerce-agriculture-migration-and-mining-within-the-southern-cross-supported-by-a-kangaroo-and-an-emu-and-surmounted-by-a-rising-sun-worked-in-gold-silver-blue-and-red-coloured-cotton-thread-scroll-with-australia-motto-and-date-1947-48-beneath-makers-label-sewn-inside-crown-farmers-sydney-inscribed-don-bradman-in-ink-possibly-reinked-by-a-previous-owner-sun-faded-and-worn-some-insect-damage-some-loss-to-edge-of-peak-right-hand-edge-of-peak-coming-away-peak-broken-within-fabric-1947-1948/” class=”ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0″>Bonham described the cap, external described as “sun faded and worn”, with “some insect damage” and “some loss of [the] Edge of [the] Summit”.
It was purchased for 390,000 Australian dollars (£200,000) before a buyer's premium was added to the fee.
Bradman, who died in 2001 aged 92, is widely regarded as cricket's greatest batsman of all time, averaging 99.4 runs per Test innings.
The series against India was his last on home soil and he scored 715 runs in six innings at an average of 178.75 – with three centuries and a double hundred – as Australia won 4-0.
India also took part in its first international cricket tour as an independent country.
Bradman's cap had been on loan to the Bradman Museum in the player's hometown of Bowral since 2010.
After the 1947–48 India tour, Bradman handed over the cap to the Indian team's tour manager, Pankaj Gupta, who passed it on to the Indian team's wicket-keeper, PK Sen.
According to auction house Bonhams, it was purchased by the current owner in 2003.
