The idea that sport creates change is often taken for granted by those who wish to employ it for social good. This taken-for-granted nature derives from an assumption that sports modify the behaviour of individual participants for the better. In this paper I trace the genealogy of this often-critiqued idea about change and compare it to contemporary theory on habit, articulating a new direction for understanding change in sporting encounters. To do so, I explore the tensions that exist between notions of structure and agency in sport. Ideas of form, repetition, and continuity contrast with acceptable modes of creativity, invention, and change. Yet in each moment, there is the opportunity for both repetition and invention. Hence, change occurs iteratively at the micro-level. Because in sports, iteration occurs in a very compressed temporal frame (I.e. Rapidly), the potential for change feels comparatively higher than in other social arenas. This means sporting encounters are a compelling context within which to examine change itself. By exploring aspects of this change at the micro-level through my work with Sri Lankan cricketers, I also suggest this approach speaks to anthropological knowledge making itself. In the contemporary move towards anti-positivist approaches in anthropology – typified by ‘negative’ anthropology, multimodal anthropology, and the concept of irreconciliation – I argue that the iterative nature of sporting encounters can tell us a great deal about how anthropological knowledge is made. Analysis of sport can therefore speak to wider issues in the discipline, such as addressing overtly instrumental approaches to change, and dealing with the problem of prediction. Understanding the nature of repetition and invention may enable scholars to inhabit more ‘speculative’ approaches to change.