Santosh Lal Was The Friend Who Taught Dhoni His Helicopter Shot. And Here’s His Tragic Story

With over 60 crores coming in the first weekend of its release, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story has proved to be one of the biggest openers of the year. The film has received a thunderous response from critics and audiences alike and is expected to break several other records at the box-office too. Though being a little over 3 hours in its runtime, the biopic boasts of great insights in the life of the captain of the Indian cricket team. And among many things that the movie has revealed about the Indian skipper, the one that has caught everyone’s attention is the story behind the birth of Dhoni’s iconic helicopter shot.

Source

The movie debunks the popular myth that Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the real inventor of the helicopter shot and goes on to show that it was actually an invention by a pal of Captain Cool, Santosh Lal, who used to play the shot to race away the deadliest of the yorkers beyond the boundary line. Called the Thappad Shot back then, Mahi picked his signature shot from Santosh in return of a samosa treat is what the film shows. 



Santosh and Mahi had traveled across many states for their cricket matches and it is said that Dhoni was really fond of Santosh’s batting skills. Both of them were great cricket buddies and used to play a lot of tennis ball cricket together as well.
“He and Dhoni were the best of friends since childhood. They would play tennis ball games endlessly. They both worked for Railways. Santosh was fearless as a batsman,” Nishant Dayal, another longtime friend of Santosh, told the Indian Express. “Over the years, Dhoni may have patented the helicopter shot but growing up, there was someone who was better at it. Dhoni always admired his batting style. And Santosh taught him to play the helicopter shot,” added Dayal.

Source

However, it was again a ‘helicopter’ that let them down three years ago.
Santosh was had acute pancreatitis in July, 2013 and needed urgent medical care when he was in Ranchi. Mahi, who was at that time on the tour of the Caribbean Isles with the Indian team, was informed of his friend’s condition by his family and had immediately arranged an air-ambulance to transport Santosh Lal to a private hospital in Delhi. However, it was due to the bad weather that the helicopter had to land in Varanasi, en route to Delhi, and by the time Lal received expert attention, it was too late.
Dhoni, when informed of the demise of one of his closest pals, was crestfallen.