Sussex are giving a one-month trial to controversial fast bowler Duncan Spencer.

The 33-year-old played county cricket for Kent before becoming the first player to be banned by the Australian authorities for taking drugs.

Spencer was suspended for 18 months in 2001 for using the banned substance nandrolone.

He claimed he was taking the drug to ease a chronic back complaint which has troubled him throughout his career.

He returned to the game in 2003 and has been playing first grade cricket for Perth club Melville, whose former players include Dennis Lillee and Hampshire all-rounder Dimitri Mascerenhas.

This season Spencer, who was born in Burnley, has taken 31 wickets and scored 255 runs. He was recommended to Sussex by Murray Goodwin, who is based in Perth during the winter.

Cricket manager Mark Robinson said: "He will be here next week and we've given him a one-month contract.

"He could be an option as the second overseas player when Rana Naved joins up with Pakistan but we're keeping our cards close to our chest on that one."

Lancashire-born Spencer made his Kent debut in 1993 after being brought over by Daryl Foster, who coached both Kent and Western Australia.

He quickly established a reputation as someone capable of bowling very fast and in a Sunday League decider at Canterbury in 1994 he split Viv Richards' batting glove prompting the great West Indian to describe Spencer as the quickest bowler he had ever faced.

But Spencer played just six first-class games for Kent before the back condition which was to blight his career took hold and he had ground-breaking surgery where two screws were inserted into the base of his spine.

He was released by the county and settled in Perth, where his family had moved when he was five-years-old.

Spencer continued to play grade cricket but stress fractures meant he was forced to play solely as a batsman.

He recovered sufficiently to appear in six one-day games for Western Australia alongside Goodwin in 2000-01, seven years after his previous appearance for the state.

But he tested positive for nandrolone after playing in the inter-state one-day final nearly five years ago.

Spencer protested his innocence. "Those injections were prescribed to me to improve my everyday life, as I was suffering chronic back pain that I had been suffering for the last six years," he said. "The medication was not prescribed for sport."

Spencer will arrive after playing for Melville in this weekend's two-day Perth grade final at the WACA and he will get a chance to impress in one of Sussex's pre-season friendlies.

Meanwhile, Rana could be missing from the Championship opener against Warwickshire on April 19.

Pakistan may fly from their current tour of Sri Lanka to Dubai to take part in a one-day series and Sussex are awaiting confirmation from the Pakistan Cricket Board as to whether their fast bowler will be involved.

Goodwin and Mushtaq Ahmed will return in time to play in the final warm-up game against Cardiff UCCE on April 15 but Matt Prior doesn't return from England's tour of India until the 17th and he may be given time to rest.