Let it be known that it wasn't just any total the hosts were trying to overhaul - it was the highest any team had posted in any domestic T20 arena in the country.
Jayawardene was understandably "shattered" after his stellar 116 from 56 balls, including a dozen boundaries and seven sixes, but it was the ideal 200-plus strike rate required to match Otago captain Hamish Rutherford's 106 from 50 balls, including nine fours and eight sixes.
Fellow opener Worker stepped up to steal the next few lines from the fingertips of the keyboard.
"There's got to be a winner and a loser so, unfortunately, we're on the wrong end of it today," said the lefthander, who scored 35 from 20 balls.
"It's pretty exciting stuff at the end but it was unfortunate to come up short."
How short?
Wicketkeeper Dane Cleaver, coming in earlier for a departed Jayawardene, had to score two runs off the last ball from Black Caps seamer Neil Wagner.
No 5 Cleaver did connect but picked out fielder Michael Bracewell as he got run out to "some sharp fielding that saw the bowler nip off the bails".
No points for guessing how many times the gloveman would be running that last ball through his mind but there was no fingerpointing amid post-mortem in the CD camp.
"You can't really go back and dissect it too much.
"Unfortunately we came up one run short and that's the way it goes sometimes," said Worker after X-factor Tom Bruce, at No 4, added an unbeaten 61 from 29 balls to again press for Black Caps attention as he faced incumbent Jimmy Neesham with aplomb.
Worker suspected Young would have opted to pad up first on the wicket as well had he won the toss.
"It's obviously pretty short boundaries so you bet yourself to chase down most totals as well."
The bowlers' epitaph was already engraved well before the game started.
Black Caps squad member Ben Wheeler was the pick, going for 7.75 an over, while Neesham was the only other to remain under 10 (9.25 an over).
"At Puke it's about damage control and so you've got to give it to the batsmen - Ruds batted well to get his hundred, Mahela did extremely well and then Bruiser [Bruce] just came in and, I guess, did what he's been doing in the last few weeks since the start of the campaign so he's been batting bloody well with Mahela."
That prickly one run has burst the bubble of a zealous bunch thriving in a purple patch under the tutelage of coach Heinrich Malan and his assistant, Ben Smith, making it a delightful habit of closing out the nail-biting ones.
But there's no feeling, let alone talk, of dropping their shoulders to ponder what-ifs in a game of lottery.
"We're taking a lot of confidence out of that. To come out one run short chasing 250 is still a massive effort and we'll still be riding hard to take confidence into the game in Hamilton on Friday," Worker said of the clash against the Northern Districts Knights on Skysport 1 from 7pm at Seddon Park tomorrow.
The Stags retain their perch on the second rung of the T20 ladder on 14 points, behind the only unbeaten side, Auckland Aces, who play Wellington Firebirds today.
The Volts are in third place, two points adrift.
