The WTC final is the biggest match of Temba Bavuma's career, but he's dealt with this kind of pressure before

Don't tell anyone but maybe, quietly, and very, very privately, Temba Bavuma is getting excited for the next few days.

And why the hell not? On Wednesday, he will lead South Africa out at Lord's for their first World Test Championship final, one they reached powered by team spirit.

His is not a side filled with superstars, he is rarely listed among the great Test captains, and South Africa are not in the Big Three. But here they are, greater than the sum of their parts, punching above their weight, and - if you listen carefully to the outside noise - showing what's possible for cricket outside of the India-England-Australia axis. Those are massive responsibilities to shoulder, but no bigger than those Bavuma has already hefted.

"I don't allow myself to get caught up in all the emotion about it, because I guess I know there's a lot more important and bigger things out there," Bavuma said before South Africa left for the UK. "I've accepted what comes with being in the presence of the national team. There's good that comes with that and there's the negative that comes with it."

So here we go again, with the story of how South African sport is always about more than the game: from how it was used as a political tool, in support of and as resistance against apartheid, to how it serves to provide hope to a nation filled with socioeconomic problems. Now you also know what we know: that it matters and it matters so damn much.

Bavuma has lived some of this and he has lived it intensely for almost a decade. His Test debut in 2014, as the first black African batter to play for South Africa, was one thing but it was the century he scored against England in Cape Town in 2016 that opened the door to expectations that he may never be able to shut.

"The first time I really came across that [the bigger responsibility of being a black African player in the South African team] was when I scored my first international hundred," he said. "One of the articles you wrote - the headline was 'Temba Bavuma: a product of transformation' [it was "Africa applauds a son of transformation"]. At that point, I wasn't super clued up about transformation and all of that, and when it was introduced at that moment, I struggled to accept it. A couple of years later, I see the positivity in it, but I also see how the narrative kept following me through the good and the bad of my career."

Maybe the media was wrong to create that narrative, but it seemed unavoidable, especially as it came a few years after Cricket South Africa introduced a quota specifically for black African players, and mere months after a group of black African players complained about the way they had been treated by CSA. More recently, Bavuma has played (and captained) in the shadow of the Social Justice and Nation-Building hearings, which threatened to tear South African cricket apart. Having gone through all that, he also knows that the discussion about race can never be totally avoided.

"I'm not emotional about it. We [black African players] accept if we don't score runs in two or three games, you're going to be called certain names. You accept that even if you do well, there will be people who will be questioning why you are in the team or why you are leading the team.

"The bigger responsibility is to try and carry yourself with dignity so that other black players who are batters, who hopefully also become leaders, don't see it as a burden being within the Proteas team. I don't think that's really going to change."

But it's starting to. Last summer, when Bavuma was the leading run-scorer in the home series against Sri Lanka and finished with two centuries in four Tests, he talked about finally being able to be spoken of, and to, as just Bavuma the cricketer and captain, titles he felt he'd earned a few years prior.

"If I look at the last four or five years in Test cricket, I think I've been more than a solid performer. I've probably scored the most runs within the team. My average has been up there," he said.

He's right. Since December 2019, in a period of lean batting, Bavuma has been South Africa's leading run-scorer in Tests and averages close to 50. Is it a case of those numbers not being celebrated as much as they should?

"I try not to live off what the hype is out there," Bavuma said. "If the stats are telling a different story to what people are saying, then why should I really worry about people who are trying to find things that aren't really there? Maybe the difference now is that I've started to score 100-plus scores and that's probably given a lot more confidence to people. But in terms of actual run-scoring, I've been doing it for the last four to five years. I find myself in the ICC's top ten - that doesn't happen over a space of six months, so I've obviously grown as a batter, I've grown as a player, as well as a leader."

Bavuma is currently sixth on the ICC's Test rankings and even that is barely spoken about, but it points to someone who is both consistent and in form, which are two labels hardly ever pinned on him. Why is that?

It may be that the seven-year gap between his first and second Test hundreds was long enough to cause people to doubt him. It may also be that his poor form in T20I cricket (where he was also captain till early 2023) was conflated with his ability as a Test player. Whatever it is, Bavuma is now over it and happy to say so.

"My career has been an incredible one for me, not from a statistical point of view, but from the experiences I've had. With all the things I've gone through, all the things I've managed to overcome, you almost get to a point where you feel like it can't get any worse" he said. "I've been disappointed. I've been rejected. I've been embarrassed. So I don't feel like there's anything that can really be any worse than what I've gone through. And I take a lot of belief and comfort in the fact that here I am, I'm still standing stronger than ever. I believe that I have whatever it takes mentally to deal with whatever comes my way. The acceptance comes from that."

He reached that point when he began to see that being the Test captain didn't have to be all-consuming. The realisation came around the time he welcomed his first child and was replaced as the T20I captain. That was also the time when current Test coach Shukri Conrad took charge.

"In the earlier parts of my leadership, I tried to take on a lot of responsibility because when I came in as a captain, there was a lot of turmoil happening in the team off the field. I allowed myself to get caught up in all of that and didn't pay due diligence to me as the batter, as the player," he said.

"Now, as much as I'm a team player, I'm not insecure in allowing other guys to lead within the space. Working with a guy like Shukri has really made it simple and easy for players to just play their cricket, not worry about all the other external or peripheral stuff that in the past we've kind of allowed to filter and poison our culture. Players are in a space where they can just play their best cricket."

Conrad's mantra of "this is going to look different" has given South Africa the freedom to dream while also setting a standard. It also has its foundations in respecting the work-life balance of a player, which, in Bavuma's case, includes fatherhood, a milestone that has changed his perspective about what's important.

"Growing up, cricket's obviously always been the main thing. You'd hear the older guys saying that cricket is not everything, but as a young guy that's all you ever knew. Now I have a different, stronger purpose in a child and really understand that whether I score 100, whether I score 50, whether I don't score runs, it doesn't change how that little guy looks at me."

Bavuma's son, Lihle, is 21 months old and he won't be making the trip to London. Neither will his wife, Phila, who is taking exams in architecture. But Bavuma's parents and siblings will be in attendance to watch the culmination of a journey that only properly began after South Africa's disastrous tour of New Zealand with an under-strength side in February 2024. They lost that 0-2 and then had to win seven out of their eight remaining Tests to qualify for the final.

In August, they won 1-0 in the West Indies, but they only really started to believe they had a chance when they were in Bangladesh in October. Bavuma was out injured but still part of the travelling party.

"We had a very inexperienced side in foreign conditions, against a team that can be very competitive in their own conditions," Bavuma said. "And you look at the performances there. Kyle Verreynne scored a hundred in the first Test, KG [Rabada] took a five-for - that's never easy as a seamer in the subcontinent. And then in the second Test, you had Tony [de Zorzi], Stubbo [Tristan Stubbs], Wiaan Mulder, who is really starting to live up to the expectation that he came in with as a 20-year old, and Senuran Muthusamy as well. He came in as almost a super sub in the game, scored runs and took wickets as well. For me, it was almost like the turning point."

With debut hundreds from de Zorzi, Stubbs and Mulder in Chattogram, South Africa proved to themselves they could bat big, an asset missing from their arsenal before. From there, they had to beat Sri Lanka and Pakistan at home, which they did, and what had seemed to be a long shot a year before - reaching the final - became reality.

Bavuma admitted to hiding in the toilet when the winning runs were hit against Pakistan in Centurion late last year, too nervous to watch but quietly hopeful.

"You obviously have to be optimistic, in whatever challenge or campaign that you start," he said. "We set the vision as a team as to what we wanted to achieve but a lot of it at the beginning was just trying to find the best make-up of our team. We used quite a lot of players and then without even knowing, we kind of started ticking off a lot of milestones, beating different countries in different conditions, having young guys stepping up and putting in match-winning performances. Along the way, we were still kind of trying to find our philosophy as a team. What was always there within the group was just this willingness to win, this willingness to play with each other and this willingness to just find a way to make sure that things go our way."

Now, they are one step from the summit against the defending champions. Some former players have indicated that South Africa don't deserve to be there, and they know they go in as underdogs.

"We don't have the superstars," Bavuma said. "We don't have the wealth of experience that the Australians have, but we've got a group of guys who are super determined to make sure that the result is in our favour. We've got a bunch of guys who play for each other. We've got a bunch of guys who are desperate to be the man for the occasion. We know we're coming up against a strong, experienced side in Australia, but we believe our chances are 50-50."

Those odds will be different depending on who you ask, but what isn't in dispute is that this final is the most important match of the careers of these South African players, and Bavuma in particular.

"It will probably be the biggest thing in my career. I grew up wanting to play Test cricket, so now I have an actual opportunity to be in the Test final, but also to lead the team as well. I don't think it gets bigger than that. What gets bigger than that is obviously winning it. What gets bigger than winning it is winning another one. At this point in time, that's probably the biggest thing in my career."

And that is worth getting excited about.