Zimbabwe captain Graeme Cremer has offered New Zealand an invitation he may end up regretting after a difficult second day in the field for him and his men in Bulawayo.

"They will keep us out there which we don't mind. We don't mind if they bat all day again," Cremer said, warning New Zealand that the more time they spent in the middle, the more confident Zimbabwe would be of denying them a victory. "We're going to try and drag the game out for as long as possible and take time out of the game."

For a man who delivered 35 overs, 26 of them in a single spell, it seems like a bold statement to make. But Cremer always knew he would have a heavy workload in an XI that cannot accommodate another seamer because it needs an extra batsman.

"I knew coming in to this game, we were one frontline seamer short so I knew I was going to do the bulk of the bowling anyway," Cremer said. "I see myself as a bowler that will lead the attack so I knew there would be a bit of extra pressure on me. The other bowlers that we've got are a lot younger and lot more inexperienced. So I look to try and get wickets and get us into good positions."

His task was made even more difficult by the absence of another bowling option and the regular wicket-keeper. Sean Williams and Regis Chakabva spent the day recovering from the flu and tonsillitis respectively and Cremer is hopeful they will be okay by Saturday. Without them, he had to bowl even more than usual and was denied two wickets by fumbles from the substitute Brian Chari, who missed a stumping and could not hold onto a catch. Had either been successfully completed, Kane Williamson could have been dismissed earlier.

Despite that, Cremer praised his young attack for staying upbeat after being demoralised by the batting effort on the first day. "I thought the guys fought hard, They didn't run away with the game. We kept them in check. We knew it was going to be tough to get wickets because it's a good batting surface so we wanted them to go at two or three runs an over and we wanted to take some wickets, which we did," he said. "We are still upset we didn't score enough runs but that's the way it is."

In the next two days, Zimbabwe will have the chance to make amends for the first innings when they bat for a second time, in all likelihood with a view to saving the Test. Cremer knows the surface will get more difficult but hopes their approach will be strengthened by the lessons learnt from their mistakes. "Tomorrow morning it will still be for good batting but from later on in the afternoon, it will be dusty and start spinning and bouncing, so we have to start thinking about how we will play in the second innings," he said.

"Because we haven't played enough, we are sometimes not sure what to expect and not sure how to go about it but now the guys have seen what to expect. Nothing will change in the second innings. I'm sure New Zealand will still use the short ball and the seamers as much. Hopefully guys will have the right mindset to bat long." To bat all day.