The random Sports Council test during a championship game at Tunbridge Wells in late May isolated one player, believed to be Ed Giddins, and the lengthy procedure for analysing another sample had to be followed.

A three-man panel, headed by Nottinghamshire's chairman, Alan Wheelhouse, is to hear the player's case within the next 14 days and further action, if any, will be discussed.

The Test and County Cricket Board have declined to name the player and confirmed only that a ``prohibited substance'' had been discovered. They did not indicate the type of drug, but it is understood not to be cannabis. Speculation has pointed to Giddins, Sussex's England A fast bowler, as the player concerned.

The consequences could be serious. For example, the Olympic guidelines on cocaine use recommend a suspension of between two and four years, with little allowance made for medicinal explanation. The only known precedent of a player failing a TCCB drugs test in England was Yorkshire's Richard Stemp when he was playing for Worcestershire four years ago. His explanation that he had been ``fed'' amphetamines without his knowledge was accepted.

Last year Dion Nash, Middlesex's New Zealand seam bowler, was suspended for three matches during his country's tour of South Africa for smoking cannabis, along with Test colleagues Matthew Hart and Stephen Fleming.

There is nothing in the regulations to prevent a player under suspicion from continuing to play, though Giddins did not play in the Sunday League at the weekend and is expected to miss today's NatWest Trophy game at Leicester.

Sussex have consistently refused to comment on the issue, and no official elaboration from Lord's appears likely until the hearing. A representative of the Cricketers' Association, the players' union, and a member of the TCCB discipline committee are to join Wheelhouse, a solicitor by profession, on the panel.

Tim Lamb, the TCCB's cricket secretary, explaining why the TCCB had not named the player concerned, said: ``We will not shy away from carrying out our responsibilities, but we feel natural justice must take its course. That means the player is entitled to anonymity while the case is investigated. People are presumed innocent until proved guilty. He should be given a chance to have his say.''