Cricket/ Fourth Test: The crisis threatening to engulf international cricket deepened yesterday when Pakistan's captain Inzamam-ul-Haq was charged with bringing the game into disrepute and the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board implicitly accused the Australian umpire Darrell Hair of having a problem with the Asian teams.

Emotions were still running high after Hair and his fellow umpire Billy Doctrove had accused the Pakistanis of illegally tampering with the ball on the fourth day of the fourth and final Test at The Oval on Sunday, a charge that started a chain of events that led to the match being abandoned.

But the Pakistan board's Shaharyar Khan raised the stakes when he was asked whether he believed Hair's decision had been grounded in racism. "I can't comment on that," he said. "Ask the Sri Lankans, ask the Indians about the same man."

Refusing to categorically rule out an early abandonment of the tour of England, scheduled to finish on September 10th, he said Pakistan had asked the game's ruling body, the International Cricket Council, to remove Hair from any matches involving his side. He also confirmed one of the game's worst-kept secrets: that the Pakistan team and the Australian umpire cannot stand the sight of each other.

"We have had problems with Mr Hair before," he said. "The team has lost confidence in him and they feel deeply offended by his attitude towards the Pakistani team. Therefore we feel that his presence officiating in any match in which Pakistan is playing is not desirable."

Cricket's biggest crisis since the match-fixing scandal in 2000 had already taken another twist earlier in the day when the ICC announced that Inzamam would be charged on two counts: captaining a side that had been accused of tampering with the ball, and bringing the game into disrepute by failing to emerge after the tea interval on Sunday afternoon.

The hearing will take place in London on Friday, and Inzamam could be banned for up to eight one-day internationals if found guilty.

When asked whether Pakistan would consider pulling out of the tour if the charges were upheld, Khan said: "I don't want to answer hypothetical questions. Our decision is that we will play the five one-day matches."

And when pressed on whether he could guarantee that the tour would go ahead as planned, he said: "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Since Pakistan could face a minimum fine of more than £1 million (€1.47 million) if they fail to fulfil their touring obligations, it seems likely a way will be found for the tour to proceed.

Khan was incensed that the reputation of his team had been sullied, especially as no evidence had yet been presented. "I read an article earlier on in the tour indicating that in these days of tension outside the cricket ground what a wonderful sight it is to see cricket between a Muslim country and Muslim people and England, where the majority are Christians. Cricket offers a bridge of peace. Why destroy this over a technicality?"

It was stirring stuff from a man who was once a diplomat and Pakistan's foreign secretary, and he was in little doubt that the blame lay with Hair. "It was very deeply affecting to the team to find that an umpire who had already lost confidence with this team should now train his guns at them and allege that there had been ball-tampering. The boys put their hands up and swore that no one had tampered with the ball and I believe them."

Pakistan are more upset by the charge of cheating than that of bringing the game into disrepute. Earlier in the day, Inzamam had called the allegation of tampering "mean". And the Pakistani public has reacted furiously to the accusations.

Crowds in Islamabad burned pictures of Hair and chanted "You are a mini-Hitler," a reference to a newspaper article by the former Pakistan captain Imran Khan. "Hair is one of those characters, when he wears the white umpire's coat, he metamorphoses into a mini-Hitler," Khan had written in the Nation.

• Guardian Service