“Why does everything happen against us from the end that Darrell Hair is umpiring?” So whined Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq yesterday of the Australian umpire at the centre of a maelstrom that threatens both of their careers.

It’s a question which is being treated with remarkable credibility by the cricket community: when Nasser Hussain defends Inzy’s big sulk and Mike Gatting says the ICC put “the wrong man” in charge of the match, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that more than Hair’s judgement of scuff-marks on a ball is being questioned.

For subtle hints on the subject, see Sky Sports commentator Ramiz Raja’s suggestion that Hair is a “racist”, or Pakistani national icon Imran Khan, who yesterday coined the phrase “Hair the Hitler”.

The basis for this invective, which has dogged Hair since he no-balled Mutthiah Muralitharan for chucking in 1995, is as vague as it is bitter. Imran bases his comparison to the author of the Final Solution on no more than Hair’s “brash and abrasive manner”. Many articles mention complaints from Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India that they have received poor decisions from Hair (see a short list here).

Wait – a team thinks the umpire is against them? Summon the bailiffs! In fact, there are only three real issues to resolve from the chaos at the Oval:

1) What evidence is there that the ball was tampered with? So far, none has emerged, and unless something surfaces soon, Darrell Hair’s career is rightly in trouble.

2) What will Pakistan do about Inzamam-ul-Haq? The logical thing to do with a captain who uses sulking as a diplomatic tool is to send him back to Faisalabad Reserves, but his action has been so popular back home it may just save a career which was showing cracks.

3) How is the ICC going to ensure this never happens again? Regardless of Hair and Inzamam’s actions, the chaos that followed the forfeiture, which left 12,000 fans in the dark while various officials tried to work out what to do, was not a good look for a modern, professional sport. If any kind of ICC body should investigate this disaster, it should be a Crisis Management Committee.