Stokes close to speechless defending home record (7)
I believe the answer is:
minutes
'record' is the definition.
(minutes is a kind of record)
'stokes close to speechless defending home' is the wordplay.
'stokes close' becomes 's' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'to' says to put letters next to each other (I've seen this in other clues).
'speechless' becomes 'mute' (I've seen this in another clue).
'defending' indicates putting letters inside (inserted letters are defended).
'home' becomes 'in' ('he's home' can mean 'he's in').
'mute' enclosing 'in' is 'minute'.
's' after 'minute' is 'MINUTES'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for minutes that I've seen before include "Record of a meeting" , "Units of time" , "Recorded notes of a meeting" , "Record of a meeting's decisions" , "summary" .)