PSL 2018 (Season 3): Islamabad United Win Second Title, Luke Ronchi Sweeps All Three Individual Awards

Islamabad United won their second Pakistan Super League title on 25 March 2018 at National Stadium in Karachi, defeating Peshawar Zalmi by 3 wickets in the PSL Season 3 final. Zalmi posted 148/9; Islamabad chased it at 154/7 in 16.5 overs. Luke Ronchi swept all three individual top honours: Player of the Match, Player of the Tournament, and the Green Cap as top run-scorer with 435 runs — a rare individual treble in any franchise league. Faheem Ashraf (Islamabad United) won the Maroon Cap with 18 wickets, meaning the winning team held both batting and bowling awards.

Luke Ronchi's Treble: Player of the Match, Player of the Tournament, and Green Cap

Luke Ronchi's PSL Season 3 campaign — 435 runs as the competition's top scorer, winning the Green Cap (Hanif Mohammad Award), the Player of the Tournament award, and the Player of the Match in the final — was one of the most complete individual performances in any PSL season's history. Ronchi, New Zealand's left-handed wicketkeeper-batter who had also played for Australia earlier in his career, brought an aggressive batting approach and high strike rate to Islamabad's top order. His ability to score quickly from the opening overs — maximising powerplay conditions — gave Islamabad's batting a consistent platform and earned him the top run-scorer award by season's end. Sweeping all three individual awards in the same season is a rare achievement in any major franchise T20 competition.

Islamabad United's Second Title: PSL's First Repeat Champion

Islamabad United won PSL Season 1 (2016) and PSL Season 3 (2018) — making them the first franchise to win multiple PSL titles. Their Season 1 victory was in a final played in Dubai, the Season 3 final was the first PSL final staged in Karachi — the first PSL title won in Pakistan's largest city. Islamabad's PSL model combined high-quality overseas players (Ronchi, plus other international contributors across the two seasons) with Pakistani talent development, creating a franchise template that other teams subsequently tried to replicate. Faheem Ashraf — an Islamabad United player who would go on to represent Pakistan in international cricket — won the Maroon Cap with 18 wickets, meaning the championship-winning franchise held both the batting and bowling season awards simultaneously.

PSL Season 3 in Context

PSL Season 3 (2018) followed the landmark of PSL Season 2's Lahore final (2017) — the first major international cricket event played in Pakistan in eight years following the 2009 Lahore attack on the Sri Lanka team. The 2018 Karachi final represented a further deepening of Pakistan's return to hosting international-standard franchise cricket on home soil. Islamabad United's comprehensive management of a 149-run chase — winning by 3 wickets in the 17th over with 19 balls remaining — reflected a squad that had both the individual quality (Ronchi's batting) and the depth (Ashraf's bowling across the full competition) to handle the various phases of knockout cricket.