YORKSHIRE chief executive Stewart Regan has scotched Matthew Hoggard’s claims that he was in discussions about taking over the captaincy from Anthony Mc- Grath.

An angry Hoggard yesterday spoke about his exit from Headingley, something which had been rumoured in recent months.

The 32 year-old former England swing bowler said he was shocked when the news was broken to him by Regan and director of professional cricket Martyn Moxon last Thursday morning.

“We had started talks about me being the captain,” he stated.

“But it went from being interested in being captain to ‘I’m sorry we’re not renewing your contract’.

“I was called into a meeting and told over a cup of coffee that I was being sacked.”

However, Regan insisited: “I am really annoyed about the captaincy claim, he was never offered the captaincy by anybody at the club. All that was done was Matthew told Colin Graves (chairman) at his office in York that he fancied being captain.

“He wanted that fed back to the board so that it would be something that was taken seriously.

What Matthew has since said can have a destabilising influence on certain things or people at the club.”

Hoggard, who took a hattrick in the penultimate County Championship match of the season against Sussex at Hove to save the county from relegation, contributed to his own downfall by rejecting a two-year contract with the option of a third year at the start of the season.

“He turned it down because he wanted more money, and we were very disappointed by that,” continued Regan.

“We agreed to discuss it further at the end of the season, but a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then.

“It is becoming harder and harder to get overseas players and Kolpak players due to changes in legislation, and there are various incentives for playing young English players.

“We wanted to get our younger players tied up first, and that meant that we were unable to offer Matthew a new contract for financial reasons.”

Yorkshire had agreed with Hoggard’s representatives at the Professional Cricketers’ Association that they would release the news via a statement yesterday, but Hoggard instead broke the news in the Times.

Regan, again, admitted “we were very disappointed” with the chain of events.

Hoggard made his debut in 1996, and took 668 wickets in 195 first-class matches. He was also the club’s leading wicket-taker in the 2009 Championship campaign.

As for the Yorkshire captaincy situation, Regan added: “Mags (McGrath) has been in discussions since the end of the season with both Martyn Moxon and the club about next year.

“He and Martyn have discussed things from a cricketing aspect about last season, and that gets fed back to the board. There are more discussions to take place, and we are not in a position to announce anything as yet.”

Ajmal Shahzad, Joe Sayers, Andrew Gale, David Wainwright and Jonny Bairstow are all in contention for England Performance Programme spaces today.