Pakistan cricket plunged into a new crisis on Monday with a legal expert challenging Dr Nasim Ashraf's recent appointment as PCB chairman in the Supreme Court, claiming that the administrator is not a Pakistani citizen at all.

Challenging Dr Ashraf's appointment by President General Pervez Musharraf, renowned constitutional and legal expert Farooq Hassan filed a petition in the Supreme Court.

''Dr Nasim Ashraf is not only a foreigner, but on top of that he knows nothing about cricket,'' Farooq Hassan told Voice of America.

''This is a gross injustice that has happened to Pakistan cricket that Patron-in-chief of the PCB had to appoint an imported chairman of American nationality who does not know ABC of cricket. Is not there any one in Pakistan capable of becoming PCB chairman and sailing Pakistan cricket through the troubled waters?'' an irked Hassan asked.

''Since I have filed the petition in the Supreme Court challenging his appointment, Nasim Ahraf has started propagating that he will send a new PCB constitution to President Musharraf and it will be operational from 1st January, 2007,'' he added.

Asked that why he opted to challenge Ashraf's appointment when ad-hocism was in place since last many years, the legal expert said he had also challenged the appointments of previous chairmen of the Ad-hoc committees such as Tauqir Zia.

''I was planning to file against Shahryar Khan but he resigned before that,'' he said.