Hired ruffian's year stalking male cricketer (8)
I believe the answer is:
myrmidon
'cricketer' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'hired ruffian's year stalking male' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'year' could be 'yr' (abbreviation) and 'yr' is present in the answer.
'male' could be 'don' (Don is an example) and 'don' is found in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for myrmidon that I've seen before include "I'll do as the captain says" , "keen backer-up" , "A warrior following Achilles to Troy - my Nimrod (anag)" , "Faithful follower, after the Greek soldiers loyal to Achilles" , "Henchman" .)