South Africa win first home series since 2008

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CAPE TOWN, Ian 6 (Cricinfo): South Africa won their first home series since 2008, a period in which they had been denied on five occasions, prevailing over Sri Lanka by 10 wickets, to take the rubber 2-1.
An innings defeat seemed the most likely result at the start of the day, but a wicketless pre-lunch session and another century from the resurgent Thilan Samaraweera helped Sri Lanka barely avoid that ignominy.
Needing two runs to win in the fourth innings, South Africa got home without facing a legal delivery, with Dhammika Prasad over-stepping and Graeme Smith punching down the ground to trigger relief and smiles in the home camp.
Smith has now captained his side to 41 Test wins - joint second with Steve Waugh in the all-time list. Only Ricky Ponting, with 48, lies ahead.
Once again, Vernon Philander made the play for South Africa in a passage when they were beginning to look listless. Samaraweera and Angelo Mathews had extended their overnight association to 142 runs, and were looking at ease against the second new ball, when Philander ended the fun with a double-strike.
The tail slogged along merrily, while Samaraweera chiselled his way to three-figures.Jacques Kallis and Imran Tahir side-stepped his defiance, and ended the innings at the stroke of tea.
Samaraweera's effort took his series tally to 339 runs, and put to rest all doubts over his ability to handle conditions outside the subcontinent.
His century was only the fourth by a Sri Lankan in this country, with three of them coming on this tour, but it wasn't enough to extend the match to the fifth day.
South Africa 580 for 4 decl. (Kallis 224, de Villiers 160*, Petersen 109) and 2 for 0 beat Sri Lanka 239 (Dilshan 78, Philander 3-46, Steyn 3-56) and 342 (Samaraweera 115*, Kallis 3-35) by 10 wickets.