Three cricket conundrums

There are always mysteries in cricket, though they change from decade to decade and even from year to year. Here are three which I have given up trying to solve for myself and which perhaps the readers of Cricinfo can shed some light on.

First, what happened to third man?

I am unaware of any edict prohibiting captains from posting a third man. I have consulted the Laws, ICC's playing regulations for Test matches and the ECB's similar regulations for first-class cricket in England, and I can find nothing which says that it is an illegal position, even if there are eight other fielders on the off side already, yet nobody ever fields there. New ball bowlers especially tend to bowl some form of off-theory and have plenty of slips and gullies but unless the ball travels at something like catchable height, batsmen quickly rack up the boundaries as the ball flies under, over or through the cordon. One-day cricket has emboldened batsmen to play the angled slash designed to clear the almost non-existent slips, yet modern captains seem perfectly happy to allow them to get clean away with it and thereby leak hundreds of runs.

Second, why do some people have an all-consuming passion for rubbishing players who fall short of greatness?

To be a regular in a Test team for a period of years is in itself a pretty special achievement. There are millions of cricketers around the world, but at any given time only sixty or seventy of them can hold down regular spots in their countries' Test XIs. Only a few of those, the greats and near-greats, are consistently brilliant; most work hard and try their best, having odd days of excellence or lousiness but making, overall, a useful contribution to their teams until their powers wane and the selectors decide that someone else should have a go.

Yet offer an appreciation of a middle-ranking player on the occasion of their retirement in a Cricinfo blog, and it is virtually guaranteed that it will be greeted with a volley of comments to the effect that he was rubbish, very ordinary, or a waste of space who deserves little more than abuse. There are, thankfully, a lot of more generous souls only too glad to raise a kindly glass, but it puzzles me that so many seem to get their cricket kicks by concentrating on players' faults and imperfections.

And third, why do England bowlers insist on persevering with barrages of short-pitched bowling when it is blindingly obvious that the batsmen are having no trouble at all in dealing with it?

Phil Hughes was bounced out of the current Ashes because he was unable to cope with it, but there is plenty of evidence that the rest of the Australians have the technique to do a lot more than survive.

Ricky Ponting is often an uncertain starter and may well be vulnerable to an early bouncer, but after he's reached about 10, all he does with short stuff is pull it or hook it powerfully in the general direction of mid-wicket. Unless the England bowlers are trying to make amends for the crowd booing him, it is hard to understand why they insist on serving him these delicious snacks for over after over. Bowlers with the height and speed of Flintoff or Harmison, who can extract steepling bounce from only just short of a length, have more excuse for it because they can make batting extremely uncomfortable, but why Onions, Broad or Anderson bowl more than the odd short one as a surprise variation is quite beyond my limited understanding.

So those are my questions. Can anyone help me out with some explanations?