Cricket : What happens if the fielder fails to walk in from outside the boundary ropes when the ball is delivered?

Question

If a fielder touches the boundary or steps outside the boundary but comes back inside the field of play when he actually fields the ball, will a boundary be awarded to the batting team?

Answer 1

No. The reasons for a no ball are listed in Law 24 (and the subsidiary bits mentioned in Law 24.9) and do not include "fielder not in the field of play".

In theory, Law 2, Section 6 says that:

If a player comes on to the field of play [without permission of the umpires] and comes into contact with the ball while it is in play,
the ball shall immediately become dead and the umpire shall award 5 penalty runs to the batting side.

However, it's clearly not the intent of this law to be applied to players who were signing autographs at the boundary between balls, even if they didn't quite make it back onto the field by the time the ball was bowled.

So I think the simple answer here is: nothing happens.