An Australian businessman has purchased late cricketing great Donald Bradman's first 'baggy green' Test cap for 450,000 Australian dollars ($340,000) at auction, the second-highest price paid for a piece of cricket memorabilia.
The price for the cap sits behind the $1,007,500 ($760,000) paid at auction for Australia leg-spinner Shane Warne's Test cap earlier this year.
Peter Freedman, the founder of Rode Microphones, who recently paid nine million Australian dollars ($6.8 million) at an auction for a guitar used by Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain, plans to tour Bradman's Test debut cap around Australia.
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“Sir Don Bradman is an Aussie legend. Not only as one of our greatest talents on the sporting field and one of the most revered athletes of all time, but as an icon of Australian fortitude and resilience," Freedman said on Tuesday.
“I have some exciting plans for the baggy green that will see it travel the country and shared with sports fans and cricketing communities.”
Bradman represented Australia for 20 years, playing 52 Test matches from 1928 to 1948, and is often regarded as the world's best-ever cricketer. Knighted for his services to cricket in 1949, he retired from Test cricket with a batting average of 99.94, making his batting achievements nearly twice of that of the nearest batsman in the longer version of the game.
Criminal activity reason for auction
The cap was presented to Bradman before his Test debut against England in November 1928 in Brisbane. Bradman, later, gave the cap to a family friend, Peter Dunham, as a gift in 1959.
Dunham, who was Bradman's neighbour in Adelaide, South Australia, was earlier this year, jailed for fraud. Dunham, in May, was jailed for more than eight years for taking $1 million from investors.
Some of Dunham's victims sought access to Bradman's cap to help pay off the accountant's debts. Dunham's estate was bankrupted with Bradman's cap auctioned under instructions from the trustee.
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