NEW DELHI, March 7: India on Monday was noncommittal about extending Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf an invitation to watch his country's cricketers on their first full Test tour of India in six years.

Foreign office Spokesman Navtej Sarna said he had "no response" to reports of Musharraf's keen desire to watch Pakistan. "I don't have a response to that. When the Indian government takes a view on any of these issues and I have a response, I will be happy to share that with you," said Sarna.

On being asked whether Musharraf needed an invitation to watch cricket in India, Sarna said: "I think we are getting into an existential area which I would not like to discuss in front of television cameras."

Pakistani officials have said Musharraf would consider going to India to watch his country's cricketers if invited. "I love watching sports and I also love cricket, but I would not go anywhere where I am not invited. If I am invited to watch cricket, I would consider," a presidential spokesman quoted Musharraf as telling Al-Arabiya television.

Pakistan play six One-day Internationals and three Test matches on the historic tour. They played a three-day warm-up match against a Board President's XI. The opening Test begins at Mohali on March 8.

The tour comes amid a 14 month-old thaw in relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours, who last month agreed to start a bus service between their zones of the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir.

Cricket ties between the South Asian giants, disrupted since 2000 due to political tensions, were revived in March last year when India toured Pakistan for their first Test series since 1989. Musharraf turned up for an hour to watch a one-dayer played in the northern garrison city of Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad, during that tour. -AFP