Crack blokes caught by English team's first tackle (9)
I believe the answer is:
equipment
'tackle' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'crack blokes caught by english team's first' is the wordplay.
'crack' becomes 'quip' ('quip' can be a synonym of 'crack'**).
'blokes' becomes 'men' (I've seen this in other clues).
'caught by' is an insertion indicator.
'first' indicates taking the first letters.
The first letters of 'english teams' is 'et'.
'quip'+'men'='quipmen'
'quipmen' inserted within 'et' is 'EQUIPMENT'.
(Other definitions for equipment that I've seen before include "Stuff" , "fitting" , "4 [TACKLE]" , "outfit" , "Kit, apparatus" .)