Former England captain Michael Vaughan revealed on Friday that he was accused of racism by ex-Yorkshire cricketer Azeem Rafiq in 2009 during a county match against Nottinghamshire.

Vaughan said Rafiq accused him of saying “[there are] too many of you lot, we need to do something about it” while referring to Asian players who were part of domestic and international cricket in England at the time.

Adil Rashid, Ajmal Shahzad and Rana Naveed were also allegedly part of the conversation.

“The night before I was due to give evidence, out of the blue, I was hit with the news that Rafiq was alleging that in 2009, when I was still a player and before a Yorkshire match against Nottinghamshire, I had said to Rafiq and two other Asian players as we walked onto the field together that there are “too many of you lot, we need to do something about it,” Vaughan wrote in his column in the Telegraph.

Vaughan however, made it clear that he never said anything like that to Rafiq or any other player.

“This hit me very hard. It was like being struck over the head with a brick. I have been involved in cricket for 30 years and never once been accused of any remotely similar incident or disciplinary offence as a player or commentator. That the allegation came completely out of the blue and more than a decade after it was alleged to have happened made it all the more difficult to process,” he noted.

“I completely and categorically deny that I ever said those words. I responded to the panel by saying I was gobsmacked and that my professional legal advice was that I could not appear before a panel having had just a few hours’ notice of such serious claims made against me.

“I have nothing to hide. The ‘you lot’ comment never happened. Anyone trying to recollect words said 10 years ago will be fallible but I am adamant those words were not used. If Rafiq believes something was said at the time to upset him then that is what he believes,” the captain of England’s 2005 Ashes-winning team pointed.

Rafiq, a player of Pakistani descent and a former captain of the England Under-19s, said last year he was made to feel like an outsider at Yorkshire and contemplated taking his own life.

The England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) therefore, suspended Yorkshire County Cricket Club (YCCC) on Friday from hosting international or major matches over their handling of allegations of racism by Azeem Rafiq. Yorkshire batsman Gary Ballance, who said on Wednesday that he had used racist language towards Rafiq, has also been indefinitely suspended from England selection.