Australian cricket great Greg Chappell appeals to public over missing baggy green cap
One of Australia’s greatest ever cricketers has been left stunned and disappointed over the mysterious disappearance of his treasured baggy green cap.
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The baggy green cap which rested like a crown on the king of Australia’s regal batting talent Greg Chappell has vanished.
Nearly 12 months on from the mysterious case of David Warner’s missing Test cap before his final Test in Sydney, Chappell has revealed on the Cricket Et Al podcast that the one precious piece of memorabilia he has held onto from his illustrious career has disappeared.
Chappell stopped short of saying the cap has been stolen, but cannot explain how he placed the item in a Brisbane storage facility 10 years ago, and then discovered it was no longer there when he recently emptied it out to move to Adelaide.
“We had stuff in storage for about 10 years or so, and when we moved back to Adelaide we brought everything out of storage and I was expecting to find that baggy green cap, but it didn’t appear,” Chappell told Peter Lalor and Gideon Haigh’s Cricket Et Al podcast.
“I don’t know what happened to it. I wouldn’t like to cast aspersions, but it went into storage, but it doesn’t seem to have come out.
“… I don’t surround myself with my cricket memorabilia … (but) I’m a little bit disappointed.”
Sir Donald Bradman’s baggy green sold for $425,000 back in 2003, while Shane Warne’s cap was purchased by the Commonwealth Bank for over $1 million.
Even the baggy greens of lesser known players have usually sold for over $10,000.
In Chappell’s era, players were gifted more than one baggy green during the course of their careers, but this is the one Chappell had held onto.
Four years ago one of his baggy greens - which had been gifted to England’s Geoffrey Boycott after the 1977 Ashes - sold at auction for $15,000.
Chappell was one of Australia’s greatest ever players, and it’s clear the cap meant something to him for its personal worth, not any financial value.
The 76-year-old said memorabilia meant even less to his brother Ian, who almost sent all his items and artefacts to the dump, only for the Chappells’ father Martin to save them.
“Ian was even less of a hoarder than I am and even less interested in being surrounded by his cricket memorabilia,” Chappell said.
“Our father just happened to arrive at his house many years ago to find Ian loading up the trailer with some detritus from around the house, most of which was his cricket memorabilia.
“Dad said, ‘What are you doing with this?’ And Ian said, ‘I’m taking it to the dump.’ And he said, ‘No you’re not.’ So dad rescued some of that stuff, and that is with the SACA (South Australian Cricket Association) who have got it stored away.”
Chappell has reiterated his belief that Mitchell Marsh should replace Steve Smith as Usman Khawaja’s opening batting partner this summer.
Smith is set to move back down to No.4, with selectors to decide between Marsh and Travis Head as the new man to opener in the wake of Warner’s retirement.
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Originally published as Australian cricket great Greg Chappell appeals to public over missing baggy green cap
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