Soundly defeat our cricket captain (8)
I believe the answer is:
beetroot
'cricket captain' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't understand how one could define the other.
'soundly defeat our' is the wordplay.
'soundly' shows a homophone (sound like).
'defeat' becomes 'beat' (synonyms).
'our' becomes 'root' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'beat' is a homophone of 'beet'.
'beet'+'root'='BEETROOT'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for beetroot that I've seen before include "vegetable's produced" , "plant" , "salad ingredient" , "Dark red root eaten as a vegetable" , "Vegetable cooked or used in salads and pickles" .)