Sri Lankan swing bowler Nuwan Kulasekara was named man of the series for his 11 wickets.
Man of the match Hughes said the Australians had shown plenty of fight in grinding out the win.
'We would have loved to have won it but the position we were in when we came here, we were really behind in the series,' he said.
'To bounce back here like we did tonight, it showed fight from all the boys and that's a really pleasing thing to show that fight.'
Jayawardene was ruing the series that got away after the fourth game in Sydney was washed out when Australia had made just 9-222.
'It's tough to get over something like this but we've played some good cricket so we can take something very positive from the entire series,' he said.
'Sydney was disappointing but even here today was a bit disappointing because I think if you're chasing anything under 250 it's very much gettable with the new field restrictions.'
