We wanted someone to bat 'til the end, and it just happened to be me Marvan Atapattu (left)

Sri Lanka captain Marvan Atapattu said his side were worthy winners of the one-day series against South Africa.

The home side raced to an unassailable 3-0 lead with a four-wicket win in Dambulla on Wednesday, adding to their Test series win over the same team.

"Right throughout we have been playing well as a group," said Atapattu, whose unbeaten 97 was a match-winning knock as Sri Lanka chased a target of 192.

"We just continued with that and at the end of the day we won the series."

Atapattu's 140-ball innings on a difficult batting pitch included eight boundaries, and he shared important stands with Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene and Chaminda Vaas.

"It was a good innings, as we wanted someone to bat 'til the end, and it just happened to be me," Atapattu commented.

"The others batted well around me. Under lights at Dambulla it always seams around a little bit and we wanted to see the new ball off, which we did to a certain extent.

"Thereafter it was all about building partnerships."

South Africa captain Graeme Smith, who had been highly critical of his team in previous defeats, admitted the visitors gave their all.

"I thought we were about 10 runs short in the batting," he said.

"We thought 210 would have been a good target, although 191 was still defendable.

"There were a couple of missed chances and if we had taken them we could have won.

"Marvan had a very close lbw shout early on and we needed things to go our way, which they haven't been.