Former Australian skipper Mark Taylor has said Ricky Ponting should have handled the spat with pacer Brett Lee in a better way.

During the second Test against India, Ponting and Lee were involved in a heated exchange, when the speedstar was not given a bowl in the morning session of the fourth day of the match.

Ponting, however, maintained that Lee was not introduced into the attack because of a slow over rate.

"Ricky could have handled it better away from the cameras and not in front of everyone," Taylor told 'Daily Telegraph'.

However, Taylor said he doesn't feel it would create a rift in the Australian squad.

"Knowing Ricky and Brett I don't think that (incident) is going to cause a rift in the side. It's not easy when you play the game the way he has played it all his life and having your say and then switching that off.

"Ricky is very passionate and a good captain, but it's not a great look for a side when something like that happens," he said.

On his part, Lee had said yesterday that the issue had been "blown out of proportion".

"All that happened was I asked Ricky if I could have a bowl," he said.

"The fact that we were so far behind our over-rate, we couldn't do it. You hear a lot of things saying there was a massive rift between us, but that is so untrue," he added.