However, because it relies on lack of concentration or discipline by the batsman, it can be risky against patient and skilled players, especially batsmen who are strong on the leg side.
The English opening bowlers Sydney Barnes and Frank Foster used leg theory with some success in Australia in 1911–12.
In 1930, England captain Douglas Jardine, together with Nottinghamshire's captain Arthur Carr and his bowlers Harold Larwood and Bill Voce, developed a variant of leg theory in which the bowlers bowled fast, short-pitched balls that would rise into the batsman's body, together with a heavily stacked ring of close fielders on the leg side.
On the 1932–33 English tour of Australia, Larwood and Voce bowled fast leg theory at the Australian batsmen.
Reports of the controversy reaching England at the time described the bowling as fast leg theory, which sounded to many people to be a harmless and well-established tactic.