Narrow escape as miners rioting (4,4)
I believe the answer is:
near miss
'narrow escape' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'as miners rioting' is the wordplay.
'rioting' indicates an anagram.
'as'+'miners'='asminers'
'asminers' with letters rearranged gives 'NEAR MISS'.
(Other definitions for near miss that I've seen before include "Narrowly avoided collision, not quite on target (4, 4)" , "not a success" , "Close thing" , "Close call" , "Not a direct hit, but very close" .)