In 2011, when the Indian cricket team that had won the World Cup suddenly lost form all at once and all together on a tour of Britain, I expressed the fear that the hosts were not playing fair. Events since then, and research into what dark arts might have been used, have strengthened that belief.

I think the Brits are cheating in sports in a big way, using infra-sound to disable opponents. Infra-sound has a wavelength too low to be heard by the human ear. It occurs naturally (sea surf, thunder and earthquakes all generate it),and many species of animals, elephants and whales make spectacular use of it for long range communications. Whales also use it to stun prey, including giant squid: at lower amplitudes infra-sound can vibrate and even explode matter.

Human beings subjected to even mild exposure to those frequencies suffer a range of negative effects, including elevated heart rate and blood pressure,the release of endorphins and the adrenaline surge that triggers the “flight or fight” response.

Initial exposure can make a person feel energized and happy, but within a few minutes there is loss of physical coordination that can last for hours or even days. For a champion athlete that means complete loss of form. Remember how the 2011 Indian World Cup team in Britain seemed suddenly unable to bowl, field or bat? By the fourth test Gautam Gambhir was so bereft of basic skills he sustained a concussion trying to take a catch.

The most dangerous effects are caused by infra-sound between 1 and 10 Hz (a Hertz is a one-second wave cycle). People exposed to those levels suffer “complete neurological interference” and have difficulty breathing, start coughing,suffer muscle cramps, and feel nauseated. They are disoriented, lose their sense of balance, have blurred vision and slur speech; they experience fear and panic, and have difficulty making decisions.

At 7 Hz, said to be the natural resonant frequency of human organs, infra-sound can have life-threatening effects.

Scientists in several developed countries have reportedly weaponized infra-sound. A rifle that fires “sonic bullets” is said to exist. Experimenters at Cambridge University in 2003 successfully generated fear and panic in crowds by broadcasting infra-sound; there is said to be technology to disorient and disable enemy soldiers.

Whether infra-sound can cause cancer is not known. Yuvraj Singh did develop a very rare form of it after the 2011 World Cup. He might actually have become a target several years earlier, after smashing an unprecedented six sizers in one over against Britain in the 2007 T-20 World Cup.

There is reason to suspect that infra-sound has been used in other sports as well. Andy Murray's path to the Men's Singles gold medal at the London Olympics and to victory at the US Open championship was probably smoothed by weakening key opponents. The Guardian said in reporting Murray's straight sets Olympic victory over Roger Federer that the Swiss champion, who had easily won their face-off a month earlier at Wimbledon,seemed “strangely anxious” and committed an unusual number of unforced errors,including a very rare double fault.

At the United States Open a few weeks later Murray defeated number one seed Novak Djokovic, who suffered wholly uncharacteristic leg cramps during the match. (The authors of his misfortune might have taken oblique credit by arranging to have Sean Connery, the original James Bond, in Murray's box during the match. The two had never met before but the Press were told they had a natural affinity as Scots.)

Why on earth would MI6 be interested in match fixing?

The flag-waving talk of a “new Britain” after the country ranked third in the Olympic gold medal tally points to the answer. There is a desperate need to rally a nation depressed not only by austerities brought on by the greed and mismanagement of the political elite but by the slime trails of their notorious corruptions.

The use of sports to divert people from elite corruption goes back famously to Caligula, and there is no denying that the British need diversion now.

They have been skunked by an almost unimaginable string of outrageous scandals.A short list includes:

-       Parliamentarians stealing from the public till; 

-       Politically well connected media big wigs in league with the London Police to hack private phone conversations, even those of bereaved families; 

-       The country's most trusted bankers exploiting widows, orphans and old people by manipulating interest rates (charities were the prime victims of the LIBOR scandal); 

-       Massive laundering of drug-money by HSBC, the country's largest bank; and 

-       Along reign of pederasts at the BBC.

MI6 skullduggery to cheat at sports is, of course, more evidence of moral rot, but the ends are probably seen as justifying the means. Fallen media mogul Conrad Black in a published piece summed up the political end, hailing the record haul of Olympic gold as proof that Britain was still a “serious country.”

The obverse of that belief is that a country failed by its top athletes is not serious. As I have noted a good many times in this blog, that has been the long-standing theme of British propaganda about India. It began in colonial times and has continued unbroken for over six decades after Indian independence.

The Indian failure in the test series in Britain was followed immediately by a reversal of roles in the subsequent British tour of India and we have gone onto perform well elsewhere. But Sachin Tendulkar has continued to struggle.

As the most outstanding cricketer of his generation Tendulkar is an icon the British have envied and targeted for a long time. British sportswriters coined the “Little Master” title when he was a 16-year old but its continued use now is an obvious racist reference to his height (which is exactly the same as that of Don Bradman). British proxies in the Indian media have participated in the anti-Tendulkar campaign and are now making unseemly calls for his retirement.

Tendulkar might not be alone in James Bond's sonic gun-sights. Judging from their sudden loss of form at the London Olympics several outstanding Indian sports stars were also targets of infra-sound attack:

-       Beijing Olympic gold medal sharpshooter Abhinav Bindra crashed out in the qualifying round with a miserable 594 total and finished 16 of 47.

-       The world's top ranking woman archer, Deepika Kumari, lost in the first knockout round to her unknown British opponent. “I don't know what happened” she told journalists in a state of shock over a score that did not include a single ten pointer.

-       Asian Games gold medalist Sushil Kumar made it to the finals but was “hit by a stomach bug” that had him running to the bathroom six times before his bout. He had ranked top in the qualifying process.

-       Ronjan Sodhi, who holds the World Cup in trap shooting did well in the first round at the Olympics but his scores tumbled inexplicably in the second and third rounds.

Is there is any defense against infra-sound attack? There seems to be none, at least on the basis of what I could unearth.The sound waves are unaffected by material barriers.

But at least it should be possible to detect and monitor their existence. The web site at http://www.infiltec.com/Infrasound@home/tells how that can be done.

The BCCI should also urgently establish hormonal base levels for all members of the Indian team and monitor them before and after games. The International Olympic Committee should be approached to do the same for all athletes competing in its events. Obviously, chemical doping is no longer the only means to cheat at sports.

The author is a senior journalist; he blogs at undiplomatic times; the views expressed are personal