Essential England cricketer? (3)
I believe the answer is:
key
'essential' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'england cricketer?' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'england' could be 'e' and 'e' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'ky' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for key that I've seen before include "(3)" , "Lock-opener" , "Crucially important" , "Device for lock" , "A major say" .)