Joe Root's ball share across three phases of his career. His extraordinary 2021 was a transition rather than Bazball arriving early: the low gears still accounted for 41.3% of his deliveries, while his high-gear share was unchanged at 18.9%. The decisive shift came from 2022 onward, when the low gears fell to 32.5% and the middle gears rose to 46.0%; the high gears increased only modestly to 21.5%. Bazball did not give Root a new top gear. It dragged him out of the bottom two.