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The Swan Richards collection includes, clockwise from left, Greg Chappell's baggy green cap, Rod Marsh's wicket keeping gloves (obscured), Chappell's bat, Bill O'Reilly's blue blazer, Marsh's one-day international cap and Wally Grout's gloves. Photo: Dean McNicoll.
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Cricket administrator Swan Richards amassed the material in a career which began as a teenager working in an Adelaide sports store.
Mr Richards is an accomplished bat maker
and administrator who established the developmental Crusaders cricketing organisation.
He received the Australian Sports Medal in 2000 for services to the game.
Curator Rowan Henderson said the collection substantially boosted the National Museum's cricket holdings.
'The baggy green cap which belonged to Greg Chappell is a first for the Museum,' Rowan said.
'The baggy green has become a cultural icon. Less than 400 Australians have worn the national cap so they are relatively scarce and command high prices when they appear at auction.'
The Swan Richards collection has links to important moments in modern Australian cricketing history.
A highlight is a mounted six-stitcher ball which landed in Wally Grout's gloves eight times when he set a new first-class catching record during an innings for Queensland against Western Australian in 1960.
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