Can Temba Bavuma do what many of his illustrious predecessors have failed to achieve — end South Africa's jinx of winning a major ICC world championship? The question will be asked all over again in the run-up to the third World Test Championship (WTC) final, when the Springboks face defending champions and overwhelming favourites Australia at Lord’s from 11-16 June.

It’s a match-up most cricket fans would not have visualised but then, it’s not reputation alone which creates pathways to glory. The WTC table saw an absorbing contest for the top two positions this time as powerhouse India, leading the heap not so long ago, floundered badly with a 3-0 whitewash to New Zealand at home and then a flop show Down Under. The Kiwis, along with the Sri Lankans, flattered to deceive, while South Africa stayed under the radar to win eight of their 12 Tests to make their first final.

In the final assignment against Pakistan, which they went into after losing the ODI series to Mohammed Rizwan & Co. at home, saw the Proteas clinch a comprehensive 10-wicket win to finish a 2-0 series victory.

The baggage of history, which labels South Africa as one of the biggest chokers of the game, may keep haunting them when they face Pat Cummins’ ruthless bunch. Only in June 2024, their white-ball skipper Aiden Markram tasted the bitter pill of being so-near-yet-so-far when they lost the T20 World Cup final to India by nine runs. This time, the job is thrust on a resilient Bavuma, the first Black African player to be appointed full-time Test captain of the racism-ridden nation, and he is willing to walk the last mile to achieve it.

“We have an opportunity to do something special for the country. One thing I know is with that group of players, everyone will try and run through a brick wall to make sure we get on the right side of that result,” the 34-year-old batter said after qualifying for the final. As someone who may not be a patch on his counterpart Cummins in terms of stature (Bavuma has 3,606 runs from 63 Tests at an average of 37.6 with four centuries), but the leader in him is in no mood to give up.

A WTC title may not quite take him to the exalted status of a Siya Kolisi, the country’s Black Rugby Union captain who has held aloft the World Cup twice in 2019 and 2023, but it could still give him due respect and prove his doubters wrong.

Asked if the Cummins-led side was the team he most looked forward to facing in the final, Bavuma replied: “Look, if I can choose one team, probably not Australia. But I mean it is what it is, right?

Speaking to the ICC website, the man from Langa in Cape Town said: “We’ll prepare as well as we can for Australia. Probably, more mentally, like you say, to have those conversations, probably the guys who have been in those positions more than the younger guys, you don’t want to burden them with whatever baggage that we come with.

“We’ll obviously have to adjust our processes for the conditions in England and obviously the opposition as well but we’ll stay true to that. And we’ll go out and fight, whatever happens, we’ll go out and fight.”

It's a no brainer that the odds are stacked against them, and his team is very much a work in progress. “As much as we have got the success, I don’t think we are a well-oiled machine. We have seen in certain moments of the game that we have let it go too much in the opposition’s favour and it has taken some form of brilliance from us to bring it back,'' Bavuma broke it down.

Whatever happens, it’s obvious that Bavuma’s mind has started ticking for the job at hand.