Sir Donald Bradman's first Test cricket bat will stay in Australia after fetching a record price at auction.Arguably the most famous piece of willow in Australian cricket history, Bradman's bat was snapped up by an Australian bidder for $145,000 - $25,000 more than the upper pre-sale estimate for the auction in Melbourne.
It had been feared the bat - which was signed by the entire 1928-29 Australian team as well as the conquering English who won the series 4-1 - could have ended up overseas.
But a spokeswoman for Melbourne's Leski Auctions said the bat would remain on home soil after being bought by a private vendor.
"This is a record price for a cricket bat and there were several bidders, all of them within Australia, hoping to win the auction," the spokeswoman said.
Despite being in the hands of Australia's greatest-ever cricketer, the bat did not see much action in that first Test in Brisbane in 1928-29, as the "Don" scored just 18 and 1 in Australia's 675-run thrashing by England.
Bradman was dropped after his inauspicious debut, and later donated the bat to a competition run by The Sun newspaper in Sydney to help raise money to endow a Don Bradman Cot for the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children.
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