Bangladesh, Nov. 27 -- Former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan has apologized "for the hurt" that whistleblower Azeem Rafiq experienced but he again denied making racist comments while at county club Yorkshire.

Rafiq's revelations about the racism and bullying he suffered at Yorkshire has sparked a crisis in the English game, and his accusation about Vaughan prompted the BBC to drop the former international from its coverage of the upcoming Ashes series against Australia.

Vaughan and Rafiq were teammates Yorkshire - England's most successful cricket club - when Vaughan allegedly told a group of players of Asian ethnicity in 2009: "There are too many of you lot; we need to do something about it."

In a BBC interview shown Saturday...