Crime close to cricket ground (7)
I believe the answer is:
treason
'crime' is the definition.
(treason is a kind of crime)
'cricket ground' is the wordplay.
'cricket' becomes 't' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ground' becomes 'reason' ('reason' can be a synonym of 'ground').
't'+'reason'='TREASON'
'close to' acts as a link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for treason that I've seen before include "Betrayal of the state" , "Crime of national betrayal" , "Deliberate act of betrayal" , "Senator (anag)" , "Perfidy" .)