The third man mystery

The second ball of today's third Test was a good one from James Anderson. It forced Indian opener Gautam Gambhir into an obviously nervy and unconvincing shot.

And yet Gambhir scored four from it to get off the mark. Why? Because the ball went to an unguarded third man boundary.

The modern trend is for fielding captains not to use a third man, but this doesn't make it any more explicable. By denying your bowler a third man, are you not, in effect, punishing him for good bowling?

Presumably Strauss believed that the fielder who would have been third man was better employed in a more obviously 'attacking' position. But if Strauss gave more thought to the pressure exerted on the batsman by the denial of easy runs, perhaps he might see that a third man can be just as attacking as a slip or gully.