Michael Vaughan stood down from BT Sport Ashes coverage after Azeem Rafiq allegations

Michael Vaughan, the former England captain, will not be listened to by Uk audiences for the duration of this winter’s Ashes in Australia, following BT Activity followed the BBC’s conclusion to get rid of him from their Television coverage of the collection.

Vaughan, forty seven, was final week stood down from BBC Take a look at Match Special’s coverage for “editorial” good reasons, subsequent allegations from Azeem Rafiq, the former Yorkshire cricketer, that he had stated “there are far too a lot of of you lot” subsequent the collection of 4 gamers of Asian heritage in a county fixture in 2009.

Vaughan, who denies the allegations, apologised final week in an interview on BBC Breakfast for the “damage” brought on to Rafiq for the duration of his time as a player at Yorkshire, and will continue to be involved in this winter’s Ashes coverage by way of his commentary job with Fox Athletics, the Australian host broadcaster.

However, BT Activity – who are thanks to consider the Fox Athletics feed following choosing not to send a bespoke commentary staff to Australia – introduced on Tuesday that they will be taking a “hybrid” strategy to their coverage, with Vaughan’s on-air stints to be overlaid with studio evaluation.

“As a outcome of Covid and travel limits BT Activity had manufactured the conclusion to consider our commentary feed from the Australian host broadcaster,” the channel stated in a assertion. “The latest report presented to Uk Parliament uncovering institutional racism within just cricket and especially Yorkshire County Cricket Club is extremely disappointing and a issue for all.

“Given these latest situations and the controversy with the circumstance we have taken the conclusion that which include Michael Vaughan within just our Ashes coverage would not be editorially appropriate or fit with BT Sport’s values. We are continue to finalising ideas but we are evaluating the alternative of taking a hybrid strategy, making use of Fox commentary exactly where doable with the purpose of placing our individual commentary staff in area if vital.”

Vaughan’s troubled establish-up to the collection continued on Tuesday, when he introduced on Twitter that his arrival in Australia had been delayed by a week thanks to a good Covid test. “[It] is irritating,” he wrote. “But at least I will prevent the rain in Brisbane for a few days!”

However, his hopes of being retained by the BBC following the Ashes have been given a strengthen, following the corporation confirmed that they had been in “standard contact” with Vaughan since his suspension, and had held “good conversations with him in latest days”.

“Our contributors are necessary to discuss about appropriate concerns, so Michael’s involvement in a tale of this sort of importance suggests it is not doable for him to be portion of our Ashes coverage or wider cricket coverage at the second,” the assertion extra. “We are delighted with how our conversations are going and assume to do the job with Michael yet again in the foreseeable future. He remains on agreement to the BBC.”

The BBC’s stance was criticised this week by his former England staff-mate Monty Panesar, who wrote in a column in the Day by day Telegraph: “This feels deeply unethical — a classic situation of another person being tried out and convicted without any kind of thanks procedure being undertaken.”