Play African country in pongy ground (9)
I believe the answer is:
pygmalion
'play' is the definition.
(play by George Bernard Shaw)
'african country in pongy ground' is the wordplay.
'african country' becomes 'mali' (country in Africa).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'ground' indicates an anagram ('grind' the letters into a new form).
'pongy' anagrammed gives 'pygon'.
'mali' inserted into 'pygon' is 'PYGMALION'.
(Other definitions for pygmalion that I've seen before include "Ancient king" , "drama" , "The Greek king who created a statue of a woman and fell in love with it" , "work of an Irishman" , "His sculpture came to life" .)