Umpires screw up. They're human. But they're consistently unbiased when they do screw up, and for the most part they're pretty damn good and consistent in making the correct decision. The Watling screw up was definitely an outlier, if we look at it quasi-statistically.
If they'd given Chanderpaul not out, it would have been a screw up -- he was out. Just because that screw up is more structurally ingrained because of the whole 'benefit of the doubt' idea compared to the Watling decision, doesn't mean Chanderpaul was unlucky. It just means Watling was ridiculously fortunate to benefit from an umpiring error. Chanderpaul being given was not an umpiring error -- the ball was hitting the stumps. The umpire should be commended for getting the decision right, not vilified because other umpires tend to get that decision wrong.
And FFS Chanders, you're 40 years old and have over 10 000 Test runs to your credit at over 50. Everybody knows you can bat, so bloody well use it in that circumstance.
. Furthermore even the commentators were surprised by the decision..and even Jeremy Coney was saying he wouldn't have given that out either...imo that ball was too wide and was spinning far too much to really tell if it would have hit the stump or not. Watling's one was far more conclusive but the umpire screwed up...thankfully we won the test so it didn't matter in the end.
