Disaster caught a liberal friendship (8)
I believe the answer is:
calamity
'disaster' is the definition.
(I know that disaster can be written as calamity)
'caught a liberal friendship' is the wordplay.
'caught' becomes 'c' (cricket abbreviation).
'liberal' becomes 'l' (abbreviation).
'friendship' becomes 'amity' (I've seen this in other clues).
'c'+'a'+'l'+'amity'='CALAMITY'
(Other definitions for calamity that I've seen before include "Disaster, sudden great misfortune" , "Damaging event" , "distress" , "Musical set in Deadwood" , "Event resulting in great loss and misfortune" .)