Most expensive cricket bat: Bradman’s 1934 Ashes willow tops the list

The most expensive cricket bat ever sold at auction is the one Don Bradman carried through the 1934 Ashes, which fetched A$245,500 in December 2021. Guinness World Records still lists that sale as the record, and nothing since has come near it.

Bradman holds second place too, from a sale earlier the same year. MS Dhoni’s 2011 World Cup final bat — the one that hit the winning six at the Wankhede — is the highest-placed Indian entry, and it was itself the world record holder for a full decade until those two Australian sales in 2021 pushed it down the list.

Most expensive cricket bats sold at auction

Ranked on what each bat fetched, shown in the currency the sale was struck in and the rupee value at the time. Complete to 11 September 2026.

Rank	Player	Bat	Sold for	In rupees	Sold	Auction
1	Don Bradman	1934 Ashes series	A$245,500	About ₹1.3 crore	December 2021	Pickles Auctions, online
2	Don Bradman	1931-32 v South Africa	A$183,305	About ₹1 crore	2021	du Plessis Auctions, Adelaide
3	MS Dhoni	2011 World Cup final	£100,000	₹72 lakh	18 July 2011	‘East Meets West’ dinner, London
4	Garry Sobers	Six sixes, 1968	£54,257	₹36.9 lakh	2000	Christie’s, Melbourne
5	Garry Sobers	365 not out, 1958	£47,476	₹32.3 lakh	2000	Christie’s, Melbourne
6	India’s 2011 squad	Team-signed World Cup bat	US$25,000	₹18.8 lakh	December 2021	CricFlix NFT auction, Dubai

Don Bradman’s 1934 Ashes bat

Bradman took 758 runs at an average of 94.75 off England in 1934 and Australia won the series 2-1. Two of those innings came with the same piece of willow: 304 at Headingley in the fourth Test and 244 at The Oval in the fifth, the second of them inside a stand of 451 with Bill Ponsford that remains one of the highest partnerships in Test cricket.

The blade carries his own handwriting — “This is the bat with which I scored 304 at Leeds and 244 at The Oval against England, 1934” — and the words “Bradman private”, which mark it as a bat he actually used rather than one signed for a collector.

Pickles Auctions sold it online in December 2021. Bidding closed at A$245,500 and the buyer, an Australian who has stayed anonymous, agreed to leave the bat on display at the Bradman Museum in Bowral.

Why you will see ₹1.9 crore quoted for it

A great many reports put this sale at ₹1.9 crore, and that figure is too high. The bat sold for A$245,500 — Australian dollars, not American ones. Converted at December 2021 rates, that is roughly ₹1.3 crore. The ₹1.9 crore version comes from running the Australian figure through a US dollar rate, and it has been copied from one list to the next ever since.

It makes no difference to the ranking. At either number the 1934 bat is comfortably the most expensive bat ever sold.

Don Bradman’s 1931-32 bat

The bat that the 1934 willow overtook was also Bradman’s. He used it for 112 against South Africa in the second Test at Sydney in 1931-32, a series in which he averaged 201.50 across the four Tests he played.

It had spent nearly two decades in his kit and was one of the last of his match-used bats left in private hands when du Plessis Auctions of Adelaide sold it in 2021 for A$183,305, from a South Australian seller to a buyer in Brisbane. Reports of the sale differ a little on the exact figure and the month; every one of them puts it above any bat sold before it, and below the 1934 Ashes bat that passed it in December.

MS Dhoni’s 2011 World Cup final bat

Dhoni promoted himself above Yuvraj Singh in the final against Sri Lanka and finished the chase with a straight six off Nuwan Kulasekara, India’s second World Cup and their first in 28 years.

The bat went under the hammer at Dhoni’s ‘East Meets West’ charity dinner in London on 18 July 2011, three months after the final, and was bought for £100,000 by RK Global Share and Securities Ltd, an investment group. In rupees at the time that was about ₹72 lakh. The money went towards his wife Sakshi’s charitable foundation.

That price stood as the most expensive cricket bat ever sold for ten years, until the first of the 2021 Bradman sales.

Garry Sobers’ six sixes bat, 1968

Playing for Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan at Swansea on 31 August 1968, Sobers hit Malcolm Nash for six sixes in an over — the first time it had been done in first-class cricket.

The short-handle Slazenger he used carries a typed label recording the feat, and Christie’s sold it in Melbourne in 2000 for £54,257, about ₹36.9 lakh, which set the world record for a cricket bat at the time. Sir Garfield Sobers, widely rated the most complete cricketer the game has produced, died in July 2026 at the age of 89.

Garry Sobers’ 365 not out bat, 1958

In the third Test against Pakistan at Sabina Park in Kingston, beginning on 26 February 1958, the 21-year-old Sobers batted into a third day for 365 not out. It was the highest individual score in Test cricket, a record that lasted 36 years until Brian Lara’s 375, and the West Indies won by an innings and 174 runs.

That bat went through the same Christie’s sale in 2000 as the six sixes blade, selling for £47,476, roughly ₹32.3 lakh. Both prices were close to three times what any cricket bat had fetched before; the six sixes bat took the record by the narrow margin between them.

India’s team-signed 2011 World Cup bat

A bat signed by the whole of MS Dhoni’s World Cup-winning side was sold for US$25,000, about ₹18.8 lakh, at the first cricket NFT auction, held in Dubai in December 2021 by CricFlix with RevSportz and Fanatic Sports.

The sale raised $335,950 across all its lots. David Warner’s signed Sunrisers Hyderabad jersey from the 2016 IPL final drew the highest single bid of the night at $30,000, slightly ahead of the bat.

How the record has changed hands

For a memorabilia market that trades in seven figures elsewhere, cricket bats have moved in modest steps. Sobers’ six sixes blade held the record from 2000 until Dhoni’s World Cup bat took it in July 2011 at about A$161,000. It did not move again for a decade, until Bradman’s 1931-32 blade beat it in 2021, and the 1934 Ashes bat passed that later the same year. It has held the record ever since.

Two things separate the bats that sell from the ones that do not: a documented innings, and proof the player actually batted with it. Bradman’s two both carry his own inscription; Sobers’ two are tied to feats no one had managed before; Dhoni’s ended a World Cup. A signed bat with no innings behind it, however famous the signature, sells for a fraction of these sums.

 

Photo credit: Alamy