The Baggy Green

Martin Chandler | 8:23am BST 14 September 2025

Published: 2025
Pages: 190
Author: Coward, Mike and Fahey, Michael
Publisher: Gelding Street Press
Rating: 3.5 stars

As the sub-title confirms this book is about the pride, passion and history of Australia’s sporting icon. This presented me with an immediate conundrum. As we have nothing similar in England should I really be reading this one at all, particularly with a decidedly tricky looking Ashes winter coming up?

But that, I decided, is no reason not to find out what lies behind the legend so I decided that at least a preliminary flick through was in order. I wasn’t really reading anything at that point, and was just looking at the photographs. The one that really struck me is on page 95, of the Australian side for the Chennai Test in 2004 standing together with their Baggy Green’s clasped to their chests in tribute to the late Keith Miller. It is a deeply moving image.

Thus lured in I settled down to read what is a second edition of a book first published in 2008. I am told however that this version is a complete rewrite rather than an update something which, frustratingly, I am unable to confirm as the copy I know I have somewhere of the first edition has defied all my attempts to locate it. All I do recall is that that one is considerably slimmer than this, so I have no doubt that this is a ‘new’ book.

The authors are both names I know. Mike Coward, who turns 80 next year, is one of Australian cricket’s best writers and he reinforces the general rule that, unlike those who write music, advancing age does not wither the talent of those whose creativity concerns only the written word. Michael Fahey on the other hand is an auctioneer who specialises in sporting memorabilia.

The story of the cap and its evolution is of course a large part of the book, as are the observations of many of those who have been skilful enough to earn a Baggy Green on merit, but equally interesting are the views of those for whom representing Australia on the field is but a distant dream, but who still cherish the opportunity to own a Baggy Green that was awarded to one of their heroes.

What I didn’t know, and have often wondered, is how many Baggy Greens there are around and whether a player is actually given a cap for every Test match that he starts. I now know that, in Australia at least, the modern practice is to award a cap on debut, and that is generally then that. In days past it seems that caps were given more frequently than that.

In 2020 Shane Warne gave his Baggy Green to be auctioned after the bush fire tragedy and the Commonwealth Bank paid more than AUS$1 million for it, in excess of double the amount paid in 2003 for Don Bradman’s cap from the 1948 Invincibles tour of England and Fahey presents a fascinating account of how all those Baggy Greens that have changed hands in public have fared over the years.

If I am honest I would have to concede that I have always envied the Australians their Baggy Green and everything that goes with it, and that has only increased since learning more about it. Anyone fired by a desire to know more about the Baggy Green should invest in a copy of this one.