Cricket team having to fade out in the southern U.S. (5)
I believe the answer is:
dixie
'the southern u s' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't understand how one could define the other.
'cricket team having to fade out' is the wordplay.
'cricket team' becomes 'XI' (a cricket team, from Roman numerals for ee).
'having' becomes 'e' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'to' means one lot of letters go next to another (I've seen this in other clues).
'fade' becomes 'die' (fade can mean to die away).
'out' means to remove the last letter.
'die' with its last letter taken away is 'di'.
'xi'+'e'='xie'
'xie' after 'di' is 'DIXIE'.
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for dixie that I've seen before include "Confederate US states" , "Seceding states" , "Confederate States of America" , "American League?" , "military vessel" .)