The former players also backed captain Inzamamul Haq's decision to keep his team off the field at The Oval on Sunday after Pakistan were penalised five runs over ball-tampering allegations.

"Hair is one of those characters, when he wears the white umpire's coat, he metamorphoses into a mini Hitler," former captain and all-rounder Imran said in an article in the Nation newspaper.

"Pakistan captain Inzamamul Haq and the team were in their right to protest. The pride of an entire people has been tarnished by his ludicrous and highly insensitive decision."

After five hours of talks on Sunday night Pakistan were deemed to have forfeited the game, handing England a 3-0 victory in the four match series.

The story led the front pages of most Pakistani newspapers, which all made punning references to the umpire's name.

"Hair-raising row turns Oval Test on its head," said the conservative Dawn newspaper above a story accusing the International Cricket Council of "ensuring that Hair follows Pakistan around the globe."

The News said "Hair comes trouble!" while the Nation ran a comment piece by former captain Rameez Raja under the headline "Pakistan in the cross-Hair".

Raja described Hair -- who called Sri Lanka off-spinner Muttiah Muralidaran for "chucking" in Melbourne in 1995-96 -- as seemingly biased against players from the subcontinent.

"His arbitrary and insensitive style of judgement sparked an absolutely needless controversy that has put the Test match in serious jeopardy and brought infamy to the game," he wrote.

Former Pakistani Test batsman Shafqat Rana said Hair's role in the "biased" decision on Sunday made it look "as if the Australian was looking to settle a score with Pakistan."

"Hair has tried to destroy Pakistan's image in world cricket" by accusing Pakistan of being cheats on the basis of no apparent evidence, Rana wrote in the same paper.

"I firmly believe Inzamam's decision not to return to the field after the incident was justified because the Pakistani skipper felt the team has been penalised for the offence which wasn't committed at the first place," he added.

However a dissenting voice came from former Test cricketer Sarfraz Nawaz -- known as the "Sultan of Reverse Swing" for pioneering the technique -- who blamed the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for managing the affair badly.