Crossword Genius

Stop intelligence officer infiltrating Kent cricket side? (9)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

semicolon

'stop' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'intelligence officer infiltrating kent cricket side?' is the wordplay.
'intelligence' becomes 'mi'.
'officer' becomes 'col' (short for colonel).
'infiltrating' is an insertion indicator.
'kent' becomes 'se' (Kent is part of the South East of England).
'cricket side?' becomes 'on'.
'mi'+'col'='micol'
'se'+'on'='seon'
'micol' inserted into 'seon' is 'SEMICOLON'.

(Other definitions for semicolon that I've seen before include "can cut sentence" , "half a stop" , "Joiner" , "Punctuation mark denoting a pause in a sentence" , "Item of punctuation" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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