Admitting defeat, yankee fellow's excused from playing cricket? (8)
I believe the answer is:
yielding
'admitting defeat' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both related to competing as well as being present participle verbs.
Perhaps they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'yankee fellow's excused from playing cricket?' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'yankee' could be 'y' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.) and 'y' is located in the answer.
'from' could be 'in' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'in' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for yielding that I've seen before include "Bearing" , "Soft, rather than rigid" , "Ceding, conceding" , "compliant" , "elastic" .)