The man who took the cricket ball Gilchrist hit for his record-breaking six buried it in the back yard of his relative's house for a week before handing it over to Cricket Australia.

John put the ball in a box of socks, then dug a hole and buried it inside an ice-cream container as Gilchrist appealed for its return.

John said he wanted to collect a genuine Test ball because ‘there is a lot of fraud in memorabilia’.

"The only way I was ever going to get something I knew was legit was that situation like that," he was quoted as saying by the Herald Sun.

John said public pressure contributed to him giving the ball up.

"I started to think, 'How am I going to get any enjoyment out of this ball with all the turmoil I've been through? It would be like if the fans couldn't see the Ashes."

John was also unsure if he was breaking the law by keeping CA's ball and dug it up on Tuesday.

"I thought it would be a bit rough -- more than rough, a tragedy -- for the ball to be on someone's mantelpiece. That's when I realised the ball was bigger than one person, bigger than Gilchrist. It was the public's ball."

Gilchrist hit the ball out of Hobart's Bellerive Oval last month to become the first Test player to hit 100 sixes.