UNDERSTRENGTH Irvine saw their Western Union Premiership title hopes suffer a major setback with a heavy home defeat at the hands of derby rivals Kilmarnock.

Stuart McCallum’s side are now less than two per cent ahead of second-placed GHK, who hammered Helensburgh, following what was only their second loss in eight games.

Now they must aim to get back on track on Saturday as Dumfriesshire side St Michael’s head to Marress on league business.

The visitors batted first and were in dazzling form with the bat. Mujaheed Azeem top scored with 83 on what was a very good batting wicket.

Raja Qamar was the top bowler with three wickets while Sachin Chaudhary picked up one.

Irvine, who had only 10 available batsmen after Josh Roy pulled up with a hamstring, got off to a disastrous start in their reply with openers Gurupreet Singh and Mo Allam scoring only 2 and 10 respectively and Chaudhary hitting a disappointing 18. Qamar then steadied the ship with a useful 24 before veteran Mike Ingram helped give them slight hope of pulling off a miraculous result with a stellar innings. At one point they were on 72 for five after 22 overs.

But when Ingram was dismissed for 37 there was no way back for the home side with wickets falling regularly, They were all out for 147, giving Kilmarnock a 106-run victory.

The visiting bowling attack did much of the damage for Killie, with Zaeer Mirza taking five for 24 and Zubair Pasha four for 28, Roy is expected to be out for a few weeks.