Nathan Lyon has avoided the axe for the second Test against Bangladesh beginning Saturday as Australia’s resistance to wholesale change returns to the spotlight in Mackay.

Fresh off a shock defeat to the tourists in Darwin, the Aussies will introduce just one new player to the line-up.

Recalled batsman Matt Renshaw will open, replacing the axed Jake Weatherald, while Marnus Labuschagne, Beau Webster and Lyon all earned reprieves.

Australian captain Pat Cummins revealed on Friday they could drop Lyon to instead prefer a four-pronged pace attack featuring Scott Boland, leaving Webster as the primary spin option.

Cummins, who faced plenty of scrutiny for his decision to bat first in Darwin, said the decision on the final team rested on how the pitch appears on Saturday morning ahead of Mackay’s first ever men’s Test match.

But an early call was made following an assessment in the hours after his press conference.

Another Test out of the team would have been a difficult pill to swallow for Lyon, whose soft-tissue injuries in recent years were compounded by his omission during last summer’s Ashes.

Ricky Ponting last week said he believes there is a “frustration still hanging over” the spinner as a result.

The 38-year-old Lyon finished the first Test against Bangladesh with figures of 1-125.

Regardless of the final make-up of the XI for Mackay, the decision to once again overlook the next generation of batsmen has put chief selector George Bailey under more pressure with series against South Africa (away), New Zealand (home), India (away) and the Ashes (away) to come over the next 12 months.

Asked if the selectors’ heads are still in the sand over the frail top order, Ponting simply said “yeah, I think so”.

Former Test captain Ponting is one of several former players to have backed the need to regenerate through last summer’s Ashes and this series against Bangladesh.

“(The first Test XI) was the oldest team Australia’s put on the park since 1928. Only one player under the age of 30 and that’s Cameron Green,” the Channel 7 expert told Triple M’s Mick in the Morning.

“The current group, they’re going to have six or seven guys retiring at the same time. I’ve been there when I was captain. It’s not a nice place to be trying to regenerate all at once is really difficult.

“I think they missed a trick last week, I would’ve had a couple of young guys in for that Test match.

“I thought it was the right time to look at some of the young boys, because you then know with that amount of time if you look at them and it doesn’t work you’ve still then got time to go back to the older ones.

“But if you hang onto the older ones as long as they have done it just makes the change even harder.”

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Ponting noted criticism of Sheffield Shield batting averages ignored the crucial fact that domestic wickets are prepared to produce results rather than runs.

Instead, he raised the issue of the numerous “talent identification coaches” and others employed around Australia refusing to put forward new blood as they would in the past.

“Just pick the young guys you can see have got the most talent,” Ponting said.

“Someone like Ollie Peake’s been spoken about for the most 18 months as looking quite clearly like Australia’s most talented young player and hasn’t had much of a chance to play much Shield cricket. Get him into the system, give him a go.

“Along the lines of Steve Smith or David Warner, they never had thousands and thousands of first-class runs under their belt either, but people noticed they had enough talent and gave them a go early and look what happened. They’ve both played over 100 Tests and been two of our best players ever.”