Darrell Hair's case against the ICC for racial discrimination suffered a major blow when Billy Doctrove, his colleague during the infamous Oval Test in 2006 and the chief witness for the defence, failed to appear on the third day at the London Central Employment Tribunal.

Doctrove was expected to take a flight from his home to London yesterday but it now seems he never did so. The hearing was told that he had been unable to leave Dominica "for personal reasons that are too confidential to explain".

There were also further doubts whether Pakistan's Inzamam ul-Haq would appear. "Mr ul-Haq has not formally said that he will attend - to answer questions, give a statement or attend," the court was told. "I must be fair to him and everybody else ... he has mentioned difficulty in this respect to his position being picked for the Pakistan team and Ramadan."

In the morning ICC associate board member Prince Tunku Imran of Malaysia told the hearing by phone he had been "concerned" because Hair was apparently the man who stood in the way of the match resuming. "I thought that Darrell had exercised bad judgement on that day by failing to consult with the match referee," he said.