ICC Champions Trophy, India vs Sri Lanka: After AB de Villiers, Zainab Abbas curse strikes Virat Kohli

New Delhi: Indian captain Virat Kohli got out for a duck against Sri Lanka in their ICC Champions Trophy 2017, Group B match at The Oval on Thursday. And soon, Twitterati put the blame on a certain Zainab Abbas.

Kohli, who was the wrecker-in-chief for India in their thumping of arch-rivals Pakistan last Sunday, failed to open his account today. And believe it or not, fans blamed Abbas, a cricket analyst affiliated with Pakistani news channel Dunya News, for the skipper's failure.

The reason, according to fans, is that Abbas took a selfie with Kohli before the match. And proving their belief is the case of AB de Villiers. The South African skipper also got out for a duck yesterday, against Pakistan; yes, after posing for a selfie with Abbas.

Here are some of the tweets:

Two great batsmen - yesterday de Villiers, today Kohli- of the modern era have bagged ducks after a selfie with @ZAbbasOfficial. #BanHer

— Mazher Arshad (@MazherArshad) June 8, 2017

The curse of the @ZAbbasOfficial selfie strikes again...Kohli goes for a duck now..Devilliers yesterday #INDvSL #CT17 — Hemant (@hemantbuch) June 8, 2017

Desperate as it may sound, but a Pakistani fan pleaded to Abbas to pose with Lankan captain Angelo Mathews ahead of Pak-SL match.

Please.Next selfie with Angelo Mathews. Must get this done before Pakistan vs Srilanka. — Naveed Nadeem (@NaveedNadeem007) June 8, 2017

But Indian fans were not happy, and asked for a campaign to ban Abbas from the Indian camp.

Starting a petition to ensure @ZAbbasOfficial stays away from all the other Indian batsmen during ICC events. — Neel (@vanillawallah) June 8, 2017

Earlier in the day, put into bat, India set a 322-run target for Sri Lanka with Shikhar Dhawan posting his 10th ODI hundred. His opening partner Rohit Sharma and veteran MS Dhoni contributed with their respective fifties.

For Kohli, it was his 11th in ODIs, and first in 46 innings.

Last time Kohli got out without scoring in an ODI match was against England in August 2014 at Cardiff.