Youngsters in cricket side ahead of season (9)
I believe the answer is:
offspring
'youngsters' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'cricket side ahead of season' is the wordplay.
'cricket side' becomes 'off'.
'ahead of' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other) (I've seen this in other clues).
'season' becomes 'spring' (spring is a kind of season).
'off'+'spring'='OFFSPRING'
'in' is the link.
(Other definitions for offspring that I've seen before include "Progeny" , "progeny,issue" , "Issue for raising" , "seed" , "Kids" .)