Phillip Blashki and now over 500 descendants, mostly in Australia, have been documented. Phillip was primarily a silversmith and had a stall at Melbourne's Great Exhibition of 1888. He was also an optician, watch repairer, jeweller and maker of masonic regalia. He produced several notable items of public importance, including Australian cricket's Sheffield Shield the cost of which was donated by Lord Sheffield in 1893, following his tour (led by W G Grace) of Australia of 1891-2. Blashki's tender was the one accepted. He also produced the NSW Cricketers Association's 'Hordern Shield'. Phillip Blashki started in Geelong as a hawker and retailer
The cricketers illustrative realism." The model for the batsman was Teddy Woolard and Roy Holloway was the model for the bowler. In 1996, after the models were identified, Woolard was asked for his opinion of Drysdale's portrayal; "I just don't rate it ... It makes us all look out of proportion." The town of Hill End itself is not as desolate as shown in the painting, with a later visitor to Hill End remarking "Even the scattered buildings—so blank and menacing in The Cricketers—appear as if ripped from the cover of a chocolate box." The cricketers The cricketers is a 1948 painting