FORMER Warwickshire all-rounder Paul Smith was yesterday banned from professional cricket for 22 months for taking cocaine.

Smith appeared before the England and Wales Cricket Board disciplinary committee and was found guilty of taking an illegal substance while playing as a county cricketer

After a hearing lasting a little more than an hour, Smith was banned from all cricket under the auspices of the Board until April 1st 1999.

Smith, 33, left Warwickshire last summer after a 15-year career in which he played 221 games, scoring 8,173 runs and took 283 wickets.

He was contracted to play Minor Counties cricket for Shropshire this season but appeared in only one match before being suspended following revelations in a British Sunday newspaper article that he had taken drugs.

Smith, who as accompanied by his agent, Jonathan Barnett, said: "I had a very fair hearing, that's not to say that I didn't find the verdict harsh. There is a lesson to be learned from all this and the true story will come out."