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I understand there are these primary match officials: the referee, the umpire, the head coach, and the scorer (one from each team).

I wish to know what duties they perform before the start of the match. I knew of a few myself:

  1. Match referee: conducts toss
  2. Umpire: checks whether the floodlighting is proper; the ball is playable; and the pitch condition is good.
  3. Scorer: checks technical equipment, and resets display of score to zero.
  4. Coach: Boosting the morale of the team? I am unsure :/

Unfortunately, they obviously aren't complete. I checked the laws and they mention the pre-match duties of only the umpire (Law 2.3 and 2.4). The laws don't go into the details of the referee or the scorers or the coach.

What are the pre-match duties of the umpire, referee, head-coach, and the scorer?

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The duties of the scorers are covered by Law 3 - but note that this does not include any "technical equipment" or "display". At least within the letter of the Laws, it is perfectly permissible for the score to be recorded only on pieces of paper.

The reason that the Laws don't go into the details of the match referee or the coach is because neither are required for a match. For example, in the Laws of the Game, the toss is overseen by one or both umpires (Law 13.4):

The captains shall toss a coin for the choice of innings, on the field of play and in the presence of one or both of the umpires, not earlier than 30 minutes, nor later than 15 minutes before the scheduled or any rescheduled time for the start of play.

Typically, the match referee duties are defined within the playing conditions for a particular match - for example, there are many references to the referee within the ICC Test Match Playing Conditions, including modifications to Law 13.4:

The captains shall toss a coin for the choice of innings, on the field of play and under the supervision of the ICC Match Referee, not earlier than 30 minutes, nor later than 15 minutes before the scheduled or any rescheduled time for the start of play.

(my emphasis). Coaches are essentially not referred to at all in either the Laws or ICC Playing Conditions.

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  • Oh! Thanks for your answer! I found only four pre-match duties of the referee in that document you linked - 6.4.1, 9.8.2,13.4, and 3.8.3 (page 85). The rest were all about during-match duties. Can you confirm if I am correct? Also, while coaches are not referred in the laws, they certainly do exist and must be doing something as a part of the team :P Can you please elaborate/link to some pre-match duties of the coach? Thanks!
    – Gaurang Tandon
    Jan 13, 2018 at 4:34

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