in november 2018, the royals announced their list of retained players for the 2019 season. the list included ajinkya rahane, krishnappa gowtham, sanju samson, shreyas gopal, aryaman birla, sudhesan midhun, prashant chopra, stuart binny, rahul tripathi, dhawal kulkarni and mahipal lomror among indian players, and ben stokes, steve smith, jos buttler, jofra archer, ish sodhi among overseas players. the royals thus had a purse of 18.3 crore and nine slots remaining in their roster ahead of the player auction.