In holdall, keeping top of tea caddy (7)
I believe the answer is:
batting
'in holdall keeping' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both acts as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'top of tea caddy' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'tea' could be 't' (I've seen this in other clues) and 't' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'bating' 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 batting that I've seen before include "in front of the stumps" , "Flirting with eyelids" , "At the crease" , "Fluttering" .)