Ayr Cricket Club fell to only their second league defeat of the season away to Ferguslie at the weekend.

But they held on to their narrow lead at the top of the Western Union thanks to local rivals Prestwick doing them a favour by beating second place Clydesdale at the Henry Thow Oval.

At Meiklriggs, everything did not start well for Ayr as professional Derval Green was ruled out of the match as he tweaked a hamstring in the pre-match warm up.

Mikey Maxwell having to make a hasty trip to Paisley from Cambusdoon where he was due to play in the match against St Ninians.

Having won the toss Ayr batted first and were soon in trouble losing Neil Flack with only one on the board and then continued to lose wickets at regular intervals with no batter able to make any real impression on the Ferguslie bowling as they were bowled out for 99, Michael English top scoring with 19.

In their run chase, Ferguslie made a promising start with an opening partnership of 23, significant in regards to the total required when Scott McElnea dismissed Adam Tahir and then Haza Tahir removed David Stafford to keep Ayr in the game.

Uzair Ahmad, however remained unmoved as he top scored with 33 not out which proved to be a match winning innings as the Ayr bowlers kept chipping away with wickets at the other end but fell narrowly short as Ferguslie finished 103-7 to win by 3 wickets.

The Cambusdoon XI were at home to St Ninians who won the toss and decided to field. The Cambusdoon innings started well as Niall McCrossin and Pushkar Bhandari put on 34 for the first wicket when Bhandari was dismissed for 15.

There was then a century stand between McCrossin (45) and Richie Borland (58) before Gavin Pitt got into the game as he claimed a for wicket haul to put the visitors slightly ahead as they restricted Cambusdoon to 222-7 in their 50 overs.

The Cambusdoon opening bowlers Robbie Walsh and Pushkar Bhandari then put them in a good early position as the dismissed the St Ninians openers with the total on six.

The visitors youngsters Kirkwood (71) and Braddock (65) then put on 150 to put them back in control, but the home bowlers fought back and after they had removed them and continued to claim wickets but were unable contain the visitors enough as they finished on 225-8 with three overs remaining.

On Tuesday night the Cambusdoon XI were in action in the Midweek League and fell to a 34 run defeat against Glasgow Accies who batted first and posted a total of 134-4 with the innings based around 52 from Rory Paterson.

In reply the Cambusdoon men were always struggling, with only Jake Woodhouse with 32 making an impact on the Accies bowling as they finished on 100-7.

The Development XI had a friendly against Kilmarnock on Sunday and the youthful team came away with a five wicket victory. They restricted their hosts to 103-9 with spinners Jackson Smith and Bobby Walker-Lynch each claiming 3 wickets.

Walker-Lynch was then to be the main man with the bat as he top scored with 26 not out as reached their target for the loss of only 5 wickets.

This week sees Ayr at home to Uddingston and the Cambusdoon XI away to Meiklriggs.