Cricket is a most capricious of sports. Halfway through the summer, English cricket looked to be performing on a lucrative purple patch, enriched by the team’s adamant, if at times scrappy, performance in Sri Lanka, and followed by its comprehensive dismantling of a touring West Indies side. But we are, sadly, no longer enjoying the Olympian summer and as winter falls upon us, a rather frostier image of England’s future prospects is forming.

The jarring memory of an ascendant South Africa seizing the number one spot from England was indeed telling. It showed that England could not hold itself together against quality opposition even in their own backyard: the batting was a constant let-down while the bowling, a much vaunted cornerstone of England’s rise to superpower status in the Test cricket purview, lacked the spark and zip of a 2011 England side.

Add to this picture a perplexing melodrama off-stage involving Kevin Pietersen and the English Cricket Board. Despite scoring a century in the Headingley Test, allegations that KP had sent inflammatory text messages to South African counterparts, was enough to get him kicked out of the side for sure. The concomitant of this malaise is a real sense of uncertainty and instability within the England ranks: something we simply could not have seen at the start of the summer.

Now the same questions are being asked: can England compete against persistent, fiery opposition of the South African mould? Was their success over the last few years, architected through easy victories against sides of lesser calibre? The jury is still out on those two. But another persistently nagging question that will certainly be answered soon is this: can England play subcontinent conditions?

England left for India on Thursday and are now preparing for what looks to be a gruelling Test tour of the subcontinent. But I think it is safe to say their track-record, both long-term and short-term, of India has not always been a prodigious one.

The last time England won a series in India was in 1985, while recently England have shown little bite when countering spin bowling. Last year, they were hammered 5-0 in the ODI series in India, while the 3-0 whitewash by Pakistan in the UAE, exposed the cracks in the English Test edifice on dry, low, turner pitches.

The team is not exactly screaming of consistency and confidence either. This will be Alistair Cook’s first outing as Test captain after to the resignation of Andrew Strauss a. Although Cook has certainly and obviously been groomed for the role over the last few years, he has an absolute gauntlet ahead of him: By his own admission“[England] have a real, tough challenge ahead of us as a side…it has been almost 30 years since we won in India.”.  

But it is not merely spin bowling that England will have to contend with on the subcontinent. I had the pleasure of interviewing Stuart Broad recently, and he told me that out in India, it is a completely different game; not necessarily because of the pitches, but because of the people.

The Indian fan is passionate about his cricket, and when Stuart bowled Sachin Tendulkar out at Bangalore, he was rewarded with the anger and derision of 80,000 Indians. England will have to be prepared to cope with this greater and irrational scrutiny if they want to succeed out there.

So what are their chances? It is not all doom and gloom thankfully. England have reintegrated Kevin Pietersen in recent weeks into the England set-up. In Pietersen lies a key to tackling spin-bowling and a charisma and natural attacking mentality that finds considerable purchase on the subcontinent: both in performances and in courting the elusive favour of Mumbaiker public opinion.

Moreover, it is an overstatement to imply that England are going to be facing outrageously spin-friendly tracks in India.The recent New Zealand tour pitches were so unhelpful to spinners that Indian captain MS Dhoni commented: “It felt more like we were in Napier than in India”. Flat tracks which provide easy batting stimulus will be found, and these are the opportunities for England’s young guns to fire. True, Dhoni has won more Test matches in India than any captain before him, but frankly, the New Zealand tour had his side questioned, challenged and pushed to the limit far too often. Most worryingly, India’s big guns of Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir, men who are expected to lead the Indian attack this winter, did not fire.

But the challenge really is there. Of the touring squad, only Cook and Pietersen have made centuries in India and if we are going on recent history, England’s chances do not look good. As Stuart Broad and Alistair Cook have said, it is all about confidence.

With a series of practice matches ahead of them, England must do all they can do ensconce in the exotic pitches of the subcontinent if ever they are to prove a challenge.

Teddy Hall capitalised on Oriel’s slow start to win a game that was for the most part staid and error-strewn in unfavourable conditions. Hall went over the line three times in the first half hour to open up a lead that Oriel, for all their subsequent perseverance and occasional menace, never seemed likely to overhaul.

In a game of relatively inexpansive rugby – a response to the drizzle in the air and the underfoot squelch – Hall, especially in the first half, proved more effective in their use of the ball. The forwards recycled powerfully and efficiently, and the backs, marshalled by an influential 10-12 partnership, moved the ball quickly enough in the early stages to do damage out wide.

The number 12, James Heywood, scored the first and had a role to play as Rob Humphreys scored in the corner a few minutes later, and then again as one of the most fluid backline combinations in the game released winger Owen Silk, whose burst of pace was enough to take him round the outside of the Oriel defence unchallenged to score Hall’s third under the posts. Oriel only really grew into the game once the three try deficit had been established, with their forwards beginning to make their presence felt at the breakdown, and both centres making ground with hard-run lines.

Hall’s previous discipline started to dissipate, and on the stroke of half time Oriel got their reward for their more positive approach when a tap penalty taken inside Hall’s 22 led to a ruck from which the ball was quickly retrieved allowing a few quick passes to put the outside centre through a hole in Hall’s scampering defensive line and over for a try, making the score 19-5 at half-time.

There may have been little to warm the hearts (or the feet) of the small but hardy Oriel side-line contingent in the opening period, but they were afforded their share of off the pitch one-upmanship early in the second half as the game took a slightly farcical turn.

With Oriel camped in the opposition 22, one of Hall’s supporters took it upon himself to bring the referee’s attention to an alleged knock-on. The referee, for his part, wasn’t impressed at having his authority challenged by just any side-line loudmouth, and questioned his critic’s credentials. When it emerged that this particular loudmouth had in fact already taken his refereeing course thank you very much, the referee marched over to him, and brandished what was, in the context of this reasonably good-natured game, a very incongruous red card, much to the bemusement of all involved.

In any case, that late first-half score had given Oriel the sense that the game could still be retrieved, and a newfound purposefulness became apparent in their ball carrying. The forwards made good ground around the fringes of the ruck, providing the foundation for a period of sustained pressure on the Teddy Hall defence, who were suddenly struggling to clear their lines, or retain the ball when they did. But Oriel had their own problems with ball retention, and a number of handling errors prevented them from converting their territory into points.

When Hall’s kicker stroked a straightforward penalty over the posts a few minutes later, the game began to drift back into Hall’s favour. Neither side really imposed themselves on the second half though, and the period was dominated by a stream of scrums, penalties and turnovers as fatigue and wet weather took their toll.

The general scrappiness was punctured by the occasional line break, or string of phases, which yielded chances for both sides. It was Oriel who made the most of theirs, being awarded a penalty try after repeated ill-discipline from Hall on their own five metre line. Despite this encouragement leading to a great deal of possession in the closing stages, Oriel lacked the penetration to do any further damage.

So the score remained at 22-12, with Teddy Hall, reduced to 14 men for the last few minutes after the sin-binning of their right winger for a high tackle, defending well enough to hold onto their lead in relative comfort.  

I don’t know that much about the technicalities of power-lifting. Could you talk about the technique and what goes into it?

 In terms of competitions, there are three main lifts: the squat, the dead-lift and the bench. The squat involves squatting down and up with the weight resting on the top of your back, the dead-lift involves lifting the weight directly off the floor until lock-out and the bench involves pressing the weight off your chest whilst lying down on a bench. Basically, the total weight you lift across these three is added up and is then scored relative to your body weight. This is the way we compete for Varsity for instance.

 Talk me through the training routine for power lifting. Do you focus on particular body muscles for different lifts?

 The best way to train can be quite a subjective topic. I’ve personally experimented with a number of different programs in the past. Currently, I’m training in some form or another pretty much every day. A lot of the focus is on leg, back and core strength, but the upper body cannot be disregarded because of its importance in the bench press. If you get in the squad for Varsity, I think that the expected level of training is at least 4-5 times a week. But again, the exact training style that will yield the best results really depends on the individual. I have done some pretty intense programmes in the past, which make you work about twelve times a week, so that’s morning and evening, six times a week.

Say I’m a complete beginner and have never done powerlifting before. How do I get started?

First of all, I would come to one our club sessions so that you could receive coaching on how to sort out your form for the three lifts and to learn exactly what’s involved in the training. There are a lot of beginner programs, but perhaps the most popular is the “Starting Strength” course; where you train three times a week, and you basically concentrate just on the power-lifting moves i.e. you squat every time you train, and supplement that with mainly the bench press and dead-lifts. I would probably recommend sticking to a program like this for anywhere between 6 months to a year, until your lifts started to plateau.

How does the Varsity power-lifting competition work?

Each member of the team is given three attempts at each of the three principle lifts that I mentioned earlier. Before the competition starts you have to inform the judge how much you are going to lift for your first attempt. Once you’ve submitted that weight you cannot go down from that; if you fail your first lift, say at 170kg for the dead-lift, you are not allowed to go down from that, you can only stay the same or increase it. As a result, most people start at a conservative weight, and go up for the second and third attempt. Once you’ve had three attempts at each lift, your best lifts across the three events are totalled and then a coefficient is used to score that weight relative to your body weight, so people of different weights and builds can be compared on the basis of strength.

Do you see winning Varsity as the ultimate goal for the team?

I’d say it definitely is; but that’s not to say we don’t have other competitions. For instance, in November we have the University Championships that we have won for the last four years in a row – so we definitely take it very seriously. We want to keep that going.

Given the physical demands of power-lifting, do you see it as something anyone of any size or build can do?

The members of our varsity squad last year were of very varied builds and sizes, so I think more or less anyone can get involved: for instance, the amount of female interest in training is growing, and I think that’s another reflection that power-lifting is quite an open and accessible sport. It’s always great to see people coming through and competing in events, who previously had never done any power-lifting before.

The training sounds very time-consuming. How much does it impact on your academic work and social life?

It impacts a fair deal, not only because of the amount of time training takes up directly, but also because of the fairly strict diet and lifestyle that are required to get the most out of it. But this kind of self-discipline is not something that’s unique to power-lifting; it’s like most sports really.  As far as social life within the sport is concerned, there isn’t too much of an issue. When I first joined the club I thought there might not be much of a team mentality, because you are ultimately competing on your own to lift the weight. But it’s really not like that all. Only a very small amount of time is spent actually competing. The majority is spent training, and for safety and motivational purposes, we nearly always train as a squad.

With the process of lifting large weights, is the injury risk quite high?

I think there is unarguably the potential for injury in the sport. That’s why it is so key that you work on your form and your flexibility. Obviously, when you start lifting fairly heavy weights, there is a risk of serious injury, especially to your back: this can happen so easily and you do have to be very careful. But at the same time, if your form is correct and you are keeping fairly flexible, power-lifting has the potential to actually strengthen your back muscles and to increase bone density, thus preventing the risk of injury in the long term. I think it is definitely avoidable. Things can go wrong, but you can’t keep those negative thoughts in your head, especially leading up to a competition.

Finally, is it a hassle to have to go down to Iffley for training?

Yes it can be a hassle sometimes, particularly if you cycle there, because that can affect your training routines and rhythm. But, like most things, it’s all about finding the time to just go and get on with it.

A year ago this week, in a match between Chelsea and QPR, John Terry insulted Anton Ferdinand. That now seems the overwhelmingly probable version of events, notwithstanding Terry’s insistence that he was indignantly repeating an insult Ferdinand accused him of using, an explanation judged improbable by Westminster Magistrates Court, and “implausible and contrived” by the FA. It seems likelier that after repeated baiting by Ferdinand, Terry snapped.

 He uttered three words. Two are normally considered highly offensive, but apparently constitute nothing more than a routine scatalogical reflex in professional football. But Terry also inserted the epithet “black”, and what would have been forgotten in an instant became an indelible stain on English football history.

The consequences of that single word, uttered in the heat of battle, have been staggeringly far-reaching. The domino effect has toppled kingpins. Terry was stripped of the England captaincy. Fabio Capello, England’s £6 million-a-year head-coach, was ousted from his post. Terry’s 78-cap England career was eventually ended by an FA inquiry that contradicted the magistrate’s judgment. Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole both received substantial fines for disreputable tweets. And English football was sent into a continuing convulsion of self-scrutinizing angst.

So it was odd that Rio Ferdinand chose on Saturday to spurn a T-shirt supporting an anti-racism campaign, his grievance apparently being that racism is not being taken seriously enough within football. Other rebels joined in, including Reading striker Jason Roberts. According to Cyrille Regis, Roberts’ uncle and one of the first black professionals in England, the protesters are aggrieved at the perceived leniency of Terry’s ban. “It gives the impression that it’s OK,” said Regis. “Come on, do we have zero tolerance or not?”

 This specious logic ill befits the considered and eloquent corpus of black players who are among the football’s vocal anti-racism ambassadors. At no stage has the English footballing establishment indicated that it thinks racism is OK. Not when it stripped Terry of the captaincy before any evidence had been offered, and certainly not when it broke with its own regulations to pursue a guilty verdict against Terry after he had been acquitted in a court of law.

A zero-tolerance policy does not guarantee draconian punishment, nor does it proclude the reintegration of the offender. John Terry hasn’t somehow ‘got away with it’. True, he is not languishing in prison, but he has served his punishment in time and money; and for a single momentary transgression, the greatest accolades of his career have been withdrawn and his reputation irreversibly tattered.

If Terry has been shown leniency, in the length of his ban, in the size of his fine, in being allowed to remain in the national set-up until his guilt was established, then it probably reflects the fact that whilst his remark was reprehensible, it was an isolated offence not indicative of a deep racial prejudice.

For all his faults, no-one could fairly call Terry a racist. No racist would tolerate such a close working relationship with numerous black players, no racist would embrace Didier Drogba so warmly after Chelsea’s Champions League triumph. Terry’s remark was instantaneously calculated to be the most provocative and offensive thing he could say, much like Ferdinand’s earlier jibes probably were, not to reflect his sincerely-held Weltanschauung.

Does English football really have a racism problem? Well, if it does, then God help the rest of British society. As an example of meritocratic multicultural integration, the Premier League is hard to better. That doesn’t mean that things are perfect.

That doesn’t mean that the anti-racism campaign shouldn’t continue its tireless work. That doesn’t mean that remarks like Terry’s shouldn’t be strongly punished. But the problem is one of stupid people sometimes saying stupid things, not of endemic prejudice and institutional conspiracy.

Two black players did not join their colleagues in protest on Saturday. Mario Balotelli and Peter Odemwingie wore the T-shirts. They have both experienced racist abuse far worse than the insult directed at Anton Ferdinand. Balotelli was regularly pelted with bananas when he played for Internazionale and fans once displayed a banner proclaiming “A negro cannot be an Italian.” Odemwingie has talked of receiving jeers and monkey chants “every time [he] touched the ball” during his spell at Lokomotiv Moscow.

They know better than anyone the difference between a culture where racism occasionally materializes through individual slurs and a culture where an ingrained ‘them-and-us’ mentality prevails.

With that in mind, Rio Ferdinand and his fellows rebels might consider the message that a protest uniting black players sends. They might think carefully about their aim to create a black footballers’ union. Are they really defending a besieged community whose interests are not served by the existing football establishment? Or are they taking the first dangerous step down a road that leads to division and alienation?