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cup in china; cody crocker wins aprc title; 20th red bull dolomitenmann ricky ponting wins top cricket award. blatter considers world cup in china. and alpine action from the 20th red bull dolomitenmann. cricket awards on the eve of the inaugural twenty20 world championship, the international cricket council held its annual awards ceremony in johannesburg on monday night. it was an evening dominated by australia. after south australian paceman shaun tait was named emerging cricketer of the year, matthew hayden was presented with the one day player of the year award. australian captain ricky ponting was one of four nominess for the cricketer of the year. he was up against england batsman kevin pietersen, pakistan's mohammad yousuf, who'd already been named test cricketer of the year, and shivnarine chanderpaul of the west indies. the award was presented by icc president ray mali. upsound (english) "and the winner is ricky ponting." supercaption: ray mali, i.c.c. president ponting's outstanding year saw him average 82 in test cricket and over 50 in one day internationals. he also captained australia to a 5-0 ashes whitewash over england and a third consecutive world cup victory in the caribbean. the 32-year-old said the australian team raised its game to a new level over the last 12 months. soundbite (english) "that sort of momentum that we created through the champions trophy and then the ashes, spilled over into the world cup and we managed to play an unbelievable 12 months of cricket. so, for me, as an individual player and as a captain and part of the australian team, i think we all should be very proud of what we achieved." supercaption: ricky ponting, i.c.c. cricketer of the year ponting, who was also named captain of the year, will now focus on australia's opening twenty20 match against zimbabwe in cape town on wednesday. soccer blatter fifa president sepp blatter gave encouragement to china's hopes of one day hosting the soccer world cup at a press conference in chengdu on tuesday. soundbite (english) "when a country like china is able to organise the olympic games with 27 or 28 sports, and 10,000 or 12,000 athletes and when they have shown their ability to organise the women's world cup and already 1985 they made the first under-16 world cup of the fifa, then obviously they are able to organise the fifa world cup." supercaption: joseph blatter, fifa president blatter is in china for the ongoing women's world cup, but was dissatisfied the tournament's opening match ended in an 11-0 win for germany over argentina. rally indonesia australian subaru driver cody crocker clinched his second consecutive asia pacific rally championship title on sunday at the rally of indonesia on sulawesi island. crocker and co-driver ben atkinson had a tough time at the penultimate race of the year. but despite finishing fifth, they secured enough points to clinch the overall championship. an exhausted crocker was delighted to win the title with one race remaining. soundbite: (english) "boy oh boy, what a tough weekend. i don't know how many points we got but we got enough. but, geez, it was the hardest points we had to earn all year. it was just sorry tough. ben (co-driver atkinson) actually gave us some confidence over that last k (kilometre) he said 1.2 to go... so here we go. we just made sure of the last few and here we are. amazing." supercaption: cody crocker, 2007 asia pacific rally championship winner crocker's title win overshadowed the performance of finland's jussi valimaki, who overcome the challenging conditions to win the rally. with co-driver jarkko kalliolepo, the 2005 aprc champion claimed victory ahead of mistubishi team-mate katsuhiko taguchi. the series concludes with the rally of china in november. extreme austria a big bang rang out across the austrian town of lienz on saturday to signal the start of one of the world's toughest relay races. 115 teams and over 440 athletes took part in the 20th red bull dolomitenmann. traditionally, the event combines mountain running, paragliding, kayaking and mountain biking over a 50-kilometre course. but this year the paragliding was cancelled due to strong winds. the mountain runners covered a 1,700-metre track across the dolomites, reaching an altitude of 2,400 metres. they handed over to the kayakers, who started with a 1,000-metre slalom course against the raging currents in the river drau. after that, a short portage segment led them to the river isel for a quick down water run to the final changeover. then it was the mountainbikers turn. the final 12 kilometres followed a roller coaster course, which included open fields and alpine paths before a downhill run to the finish in lienz. the four-man kolland topsport kleine zeitung team emerged victorious after a long and demanding day. ends duration: 5 minutes exactly