He arrived at Saxton Oval shortly after 6pm yesterday to watch the Stags in action while mingling with teammates and fulfilling sponsorship obligations.
But Stags skipper Kruger van Wyk put any perceived burden of expectation on Jayawardene into perspective last night.
"Overseas players are only supplementary players but the locals still need to do the job and win," said Van Wyk as the Heinrich Malan-coached batsmen came up shy in the batting and bowling department after the visitors won the toss and chose to pad up for a respectable 175-9 in 20 overs.
The 35-year-old wicketkeeper, who top scored for CD with a sedate 38 from 35 balls at No7, wasn't in the mood to put a warm-fuzzy spin on his contribution but emphasised it all boiled down to doing the simple things systematically following their defeat to the last-placed team in the competition before last night's game.
"To be honest our bowlers were just not sharp enough and gave away too many cheap runs so that's disappointing," Van Wyk lamented.
Seth Rance and import Mitchell Claydon took 3-32 and 2-33, respectively, with their medium pacers from the four allotted overs but spinner Marty Kain was outstanding with 1-17, redeeming himself from the admittedly two previously average performances.
Firebirds batsman Stephen Murdoch took a shine to the rest of the bowling merchants to post 70 runs from 45 balls, a personal milestone after eclipsing his previous best of an unbeaten 61.
In reply, several CD batsmen got starts to double figures but no one, apart from Van Wyk, hung around with much purpose and intent.
"We're just not getting over the line. There's no point in playing good and not getting Ws [wins]."
Import Jade Dernbach took 3-25 with Dean Hutchinson (1-25) and Brent Arnel (1-25) matching him in the frugality stakes although tweaker Luke Woodcock took 2-25. Ironically Jayawardene is an exponent of playing spin.
Van Wyk said CD had five more games to play and they would bounce back.
"We need to find that little bit of magic to perform better with the bat and ball as a collective unit.
"T20 can be perceived to be complicated but it shouldn't be. If you do the basics right you'll win games most of the time, " he said, adding CD were now shifting their gaze to tomorrow's clash.
Jayawardene, he said, had made an impression on the Stags just by appearing at the changing room for a beer with the boys although some of the players were a little shy.
"Little Indika was all star struck when he saw Mahela so it's exciting to be around a legend ... ," Van Wyk said, adding CD would give him some games to make him feel welcome.
