England's duo of Cumbrian Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler have been retained by Rajasthan Royals for next year’s Indian Premier League.

The explosive pair, both currently involved in this week’s second Test against Sri Lanka, signed for the franchise last season and will team up once again in the 2019 edition.

Stokes, from Cockermouth, was bought for £1.4million in last year’s auction, with Buttler a relative bargain at £490,000, and both men will be hoping to use the tournament to hone their white-ball skills ahead of the home World Cup.

The pair will again be joined in the squad by Sussex’s Jofra Archer, the Barbados-born pace bowler who is currently in the process of qualifying for England.

Buttler, who was the Royals’ top-performing batsman last year, scoring 548 runs at an average of 54.80, said: "It is great to play with Stokesy and I really hope the fans back home in England will get behind us as players and choose the Royals as their team to support.

"Last season was a fantastic experience and went so well. I’m looking to build on that moving into 2019 and hopefully we can go all the way this time."

Zubin Bharucha, head of cricket for the franchise, added: "We believe that retaining the likes of Jos and Ben will be vital to the success of the team in the upcoming IPL season.

"It’s fantastic for us to be able to secure such massive names from English cricket.”

The IPL auction, which is likely to feature a host of England players, takes place on December 18, when unsigned players can be drafted.

Next year’s IPL is set to start on Saturday, March 23.