New South Wales cricket has suffered a major setback ahead of Sunday's ING Cup Final against Queensland with the news today that batsman Graeme Rummans has tested positive to the banned masking agent probenecid.

Rummans, 25, has been withdrawn from the Blues' team to play in that match and will appear before the Anti-Doping Committee of the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) in Melbourne next Thursday. He faces the possibility of a two-year ban from interstate and international cricket at that hearing.

"Obviously, you don't like to hear of this sort of thing in any sport," said David Gilbert, Chief Executive Officer of Cricket New South Wales.

"But our focus (with Graeme) now is on the hearing itself next Thursday."

Gilbert added that steps have been taken to ensure that the development will not distract the Blues from the defence of their domestic one-day title when they take the field at the 'Gabba this weekend.

Rummans' appointment with the three-person committee comes after he was found to have produced a positive reaction to probenecid following a state training session in late December.

Probenecid is a drug taken primarily to manage gout and is occasionally used in combination with antibiotics to treat a small range of infections. Its presence on the list of drugs formally banned by the ACB is a result of its ability to hamper the detection of other prohibited drugs in a person's bloodstream.

Rummans, a left handed strokeplayer from the St George club in Sydney, has played a total of 21 first-class and 25 one-day matches for New South Wales since making his senior debut for the state in 1997-98. He was the captain of the state's colts team in 1996-97 and 1997-98, and also toured Zimbabwe with an Australian Academy team in 1998-99. His solitary first-class century was registered in the second match of that tour.

Only one player in Australian history has previously returned a positive result under the system of random drug testing of state players that operates under the auspices of the ACB and the Australian Sports Drug Agency.

Ultimately found guilty of an offence in his use of the banned steroid nandrolone, then Western Australian paceman Duncan Spencer was suspended from interstate and international cricket for a period of 18 months by the ACB in April.

Late this afternoon, Rummans indicated that he would be contesting his case and said that he welcomed the opportunity of a hearing to prove his innocence.

© 2002 CricInfo Ltd