Week 5 Power Rankings: Uncovering Townsville’s most dominant cricket teams

Each week the Bulletin will track the risers and fallers in local cricket to generate a ‘Power Score’ figure that reflects how dominant each team has been in its division, junior and senior.

Chris Stanger from Norths, Sam Farrelly from Northern Beaches, Chris Gartrell from Suburban Parks, Sam Lowry from Wests, Grant Dilger from Wanderers and Bailee Brown from Brothers

A TRAINING regimen the envy of park cricketers around the state has sent Sub Parks’ all-conquering C grade Red outfit (5-0) soaring to the top of the Bulletin’s local cricket power rankings.

Subs Red’s core team has been together nearly five years and are still chasing their first title, but two nets sessions a week – totalling five hours of practice – has inspired a batting explosion that has skipper Harjit Singh dreaming of glory.

Only Sub Parks A Grade team (1073 runs) has scored more than the C Grade leaders (827), who are 73 runs ahead of Brothers’ A Grade in third.

“Our bowlers get to work on their weaknesses and the batters are always improving,” Singh said.

One stumbling block facing the team is the impending wedding of bowler Gagandeep Saini in India, which will also leave them short his brother Ramandeep, a top-order batsman, from December onwards.

The addition of Tony Holznagel and Adam ‘Boof’ Warren will ease their loss in the run to the finals.

WEEK 3 - SEPT 29

BROTHERS’ A Grade team is the most dominant side in Townsville cricket through the competition’s opening three weeks, according to statistical analysis exclusive to the Townsville Bulletin.

Each week the Bulletin will track the risers and fallers in local cricket to generate a ‘Power Score’ figure that reflects how dominant each team has been in its division, junior and senior.

There are four unbeaten teams remaining in senior cricket but Brothers (2-1) are rated Townsville’s best.

The greatest wickets differential in Townsville (+11) has propelled Brothers to the top, ahead of C Grade leaders Sub Parks Red and Norths in A Grade, both undefeated.

Brothers coach Bobby Haylett said his team had bucked their bad habit of starting slowly in A Grade with strong wins over Wanderers and Northern Beaches in the opening weeks.

“It’s fantastic to be ranked No.1, particularly with our history of being slow starters,” Haylett said.

“We’ve always had a few players changing over from rugby and Aussie rules to cricket so to have two wins in the first three games is a good start.”

Haylett credited his side’s “vast” batting improvement and an evolution in bowling stocks for his side’s early dominance in the competition.

Last week’s hiccup, a seven-wicket defeat away to the reigning premiers Wests at Cutheringa Park, has not shaken his belief in his team in 2022-23.

“We had a number of players out of our line-up so that was always going to be a tough, tough slog and we thought we did reasonably well,” Haylett said.

Chris Stanger from Norths, Sam Farrelly from Northern Beaches, Chris Gartrell from Suburban Parks, Sam Lowry from Wests, Grant Dilger from Wanderers and Bailee Brown from Brothers are set the the up-coming Townsville cricket season. Picture: Evan Morgan

“Early in the season, to get a bit of a reminder from a strong opposition that we need to work on how we approach to our innings to get a score that’s going to be defendable.

“We’re under no illusions with the quality of the opposition we’ll face over the next few weeks (Sub Parks, Norths, Wanderers). We’re going to have to really, really work hard to maintain that position because our true test is still to come.”

Originally published as Week 5 Power Rankings: Uncovering Townsville’s most dominant cricket teams