MATCH STATS
Ayr roared back with second-half goals from Fraser Bryden and Markus Fjortoft to rescue a point after Inverness looked set to make it four wins in a row.
Early strikes from Shane Sutherland and Logan Chalmers seemed to have them cruising but Caley reckoned without Ayr’s storming response.
The collapse stunned Caley boss Billy Dodds who admitted: “While we were great in the first-half we were dreadful after the interval.
“We were really poor and started doing silly things and couldn’t get out of the rut.”
Ayr have made a habit of conceding early goals and that sorry trend continued as Caley took only six minutes to leave them trailing again.
The visitors had already forced two corners before Billy Mckay made ground down the right and cut the ball back for Sutherland to force home from close range.
Caley doubled their lead with only 13 minutes on the clock when Chalmers collected a Mckay pass and curled an exquisite left-foot shot into the top left corner from 20 yards.
The home fans were stunned while a noisy band of Caley fans loudly celebrated their hot start.
Sam Ashford returned from a two-game ban to lead the Ayr attack alongside teenager Bryden but the duo were starved of decent ball as Inverness bossed the play.
Ashford tried to spark Ayr to life in 27 minutes with a driven ball across the face of goal but there were no takers.
Top scorer Tomi Adeloye and winger Daire O’connor were summoned from the bench at half-time as Ayr looked for a turnaround and almost straight away Bryden forced a good save from Cameron Mackay.
Bryden sparked hopes of a fightback in 54 minutes when he turned on to an O’connor to drill home his first senior goal.
Ayr were transformed as they piled forward leaving their fans wondering why they hadn’t started the game the same way.
Kerr Mcinroy shot over before O’connor had a low shot saved.
Their pressure paid off in 75 minutes when sub Fjortoft nodded home a Mcinroy free-kick.
Ayr boss Lee Bullen claimed: “It seems to be a broken record that we go behind early on. Ultimately, that can’t be acceptable.
“We could and possibly should have gone on to win the game. One question I don’t have about this group of players is their resilience.”