Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne faces a maximum two-year ban from cricket after a second urine test tested positive for a banned diuretic.

The Australian Sports Drug Agency is believed to have informed Warne on Monday that the second sample also tested positive.

The B-test came from the same test conducted by the agency at the SCG on January 22 this year.

Under ASDA protocol, Warne has seven days to ask for an internal inquiry or appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Warne who spent the day locked in talks with lawyers and public relations advisers is preparing a defence to explain how the diuretic came to be in his system.

Diuretics are banned under International Cricket Council laws

because of their ability to mask performance-enhancing and muscle-building drugs, including steroids. But Warne claims he was given a single diuretic tablet by his mother Brigitte for vanity purposes on the eve of a press conference to announce his pending retirement from one-day cricket on January 22.

His mother sometimes uses the prescription blood pressure pills as a weight-loss aid.

It emerged that Warne's lawyers are expected to argue that the type of diuretic used by Warne was not strong enough to hide traces of steroids. He faces a possible two-year ban from all cricket unless he is able to prove exceptional circumstances.

ASDA spokesman Shawn Winnett said yesterday he could not comment on the result of Warne's second sample.

"Technically the process is still only between us and Shane," Winnett said.

Victorian Supreme Court Justice Bill Gillard who chaired the ACB's two previous anti-doping hearings ruled himself out of the Warne case. Justice Gillard revealed that he had acted for Warne during a "procedural matter" 10 years ago.

Meanwhile, the ACB is expected to wait until after the Warne hearing before announcing a replacement for the World Cup squad in South Africa.

Former off-spinner Peter Taylor was selected to sit on the three-person Australian Cricket Board antidoping committee. Taylor played 13 Tests for Australia but was dumped from the side to make way for Warne in January 1992.

Queensland Justice Glen Williams and medical specialist Dr Susan White complete the ACB panel that will decide Warne's cricketing fate.

But a date for the hearing remains unclear because the champion leg spinner is yet to notify the board of the findings of the test of his B-sample.