A poor innings by chap lacking a partner (1,6,3)
I believe the answer is:
a single man
'lacking a partner' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I cannot tell whether this works.
'a poor innings by chap' is the wordplay.
'poor innings' becomes 'single' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'chap' becomes 'man' (chap can mean a man).
'a'+'single'+'man'='A SINGLE MAN'
Can you help me to learn more?
I've seen this clue in The Guardian.
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