Toss plays a huge role in Cricket.

Let me compare Cricket to Football in this scenario. In Football, both the teams play on the same ground at the same time. Hence, the ground conditions will affect both teams to the same extent and in the same way. However, in Cricket, too many variables come into the picture such as light, pitch condition, dew etc which vary drastically between the team batting first and the team batting second. For eg : most pitches tend to be bouncy and fast at the start and slow down later. In this case, teams which are comfortable with slower pitches would prefer batting second. Hence, the toss would play a huge role in the match, by determining who gets to play in slower track or faster track.