Why is that ridiculous? Anything past leg-stump is considerably harder to play than past off-stump. It vastly limits the shots available to the batsmen too. Not a problem in four or five day matches, but in limited overs, you could just shoot down ball after ball just wide of leg-stump and there would be negligable runs scored, it's so easy to set a field to that bowling, since it would be practically impossible to get the ball anywhere except behind square on the leg side.
So I don't think it's harsh saying that anything beyond the stump is wide. It's a fairly well established rule, not as if they can claim they didn't know about it
