West Indies captain Carl Hooper believes the team's batsmen need to start producing runs throughout the order, rather than relying on their stars to score heavily.

Hooper said the reliance on himself, Brian Lara and Ridley Jacobs to produce the goods had to change with the younger players expected to contribute.

Hooper, who led West Indies to a Test and one-day series defeat against South Africa, has yet to be handed the skipper's job for the short tour to Zimbabwe next month.

Hooper was third in the batting averages behind Jacobs and Lara but urged the team's young batsmen to share the burden.

"Even if you have one or two senior fellows firing, we are basically trying to get us to play together as a team.

We want to have everybody playing as a team and doing well because there will be days when senior players won't score, there will be tours when the senior players will have poor tours.

"We've got to ask the junior players to step up rather than the emphasis being placed on a Lara or a Hooper or whoever else in the team is playing well," Hooper said.

Hooper, who was appointed captain in the place of Jimmy Adams for the series, failed to convert his form in the Busta Cup to the Test arena.

He failed to score a century in either form of cricket but was not unhappy with his form: "It could have been better, but I am not disappointed."