Unorthodox and rotten cricketer restricting English (7)
I believe the answer is:
offbeat
'unorthodox' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'rotten cricketer restricting english' is the wordplay.
'rotten' becomes 'off' (rotten food is 'off').
'cricketer' becomes 'bat' (I've seen this before).
'restricting' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'english' becomes 'e' (abbreviation).
'bat' placed around 'e' is 'beat'.
'off'+'beat'='OFFBEAT'
'and' is the link.
(Other definitions for offbeat that I've seen before include "Odd, unconventional" , "Kooky" , "Unusual, not ordinary - or rhythmic" , "Unconventional or lacking rhythm" , "rather unorthodox" .)