MUMBAI: Former India opener Wasim Jaffer has lauded the BCCI for conducting the inaugural Emerging Men’s Tournament at the Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru, but has urged the cricket body and its Centre of Excellence head and former India batting great VVS Laxman to incentivise the red-ball tournament.The tournament began on July 6. Four teams – Team A, Team B, Team C and Team D took part in it. Former India and Mumbai players-turned coaches Ramesh Powar and Jaffer were amongst the coaches. The red-ball tournament involved three matches per team of four-day duration each. The tourney was an exercise by the BCCI to identify promising young talents who could potentially go on to play Test cricket for India in the future.The selected Under-25 players, who have represented India in age group cricket and are rising faces in domestic cricket were named as captains for the four sides.The Jaffer-coached Team A won the tournament on Friday. “It’s a good initiative by the BCCI to have this tournament, because red-ball cricket is a neglected format for various reasons. They are identifying good players in the Under-23 to Under-15 category, who have graduated from the under-19 level, and played at the Under-23 teams. We did a 28-day camp before this tournament of almost 60 players. Of course, those players who were playing in the IPL couldn’t attend that camp. After that camp, several of the kids had to go and play in the state T20 leagues, and some of these players will go and play in state T20 leagues after this tournament. Now, that is a challenge that every youngster will have today, they will have to shift formats in a very quick time. It wasn’t easy to play three matches of four days’ duration each, but the boys showed a lot of desire,” Jaffer told TOI from Bengaluru. “The only thing is that the BCCI, or VVS can put an incentive for the players (to do well in it), because I feel that that is a driving force. Maybe the players who score hundreds, score most runs, or get more wickets, can be given a big incentive. I don’t think that the BCCI has a lack of funds. The Board can easily put in a decent amount of money (as prize money) in this tournament. We keep saying that there is no comparison between the IPL and red-ball cricket, in terms of financial rewards. So, I think that it will be a good idea to give good prize money to the top performers in this tournament, as that will encourage the young players to put in an extra effort and doing well in it. It will become just a bit more tempting for the boys to do well in this tournament, in that case. Otherwise, as I said, it’s a great initiative by the BCCI,” Jaffer felt. One of the stars of the Jaffar-coached BCCI COE Emerging Players tournament winning Team A was Jammu & Kashmir and Royal Challengers Bengaluru pacer Rasikh Salam, who took eight wickets in two matches and scored 72 off 57 balls in the first innings of the first game, proving he has the skill with the red ball as well. Salam finished as one of the top performers in the tournament.“Besides Rasikh, Raxit Mehta (Saurashtra), Qamran Iqbal (Jammu & Kashmir) and Manan Bhatt did well in the tournament,” Jaffer said. In Team A’s first match, Team B, captained by Aman Mokhade and coached by Ramesh Powar, scored 536 for seven declared, with Manan Bhatt scoring 218 not out. In reply, Team A, captained by Uday Saharan put up 436, with Raxit Mehta of Saurashtra top-scoring with 119 not out, and Rasikh Salam hit a quickfire half-century. Team B made 277 for six in their second innings, with PS Moliya making 103 not out. In Team A’s second match, Jammu & Kashmir’s Qamran Iqbal scored 100 & 65, as Team A made 447 (Vipraj Nigam scored 97) and 124 for 2, while Team D made 271 & 298. In their third match, Team A dismissed Team C for 206, and then replied with 513, with Salil Arora making 169 and Iqbal scoring 81. Team A then dismissed Team C for 182.