I reckon for every Burgess there's a Folau or Thorn who aces the move between codes. And in any case, Burgess playing Union probably went a bit better than Alastair Cook playing T20.It's an interesting question.
Instinctively I thought the cricket formats are closer and, after consideration, I still believe this to be the case.
Primarily because it seems that the genuinely great players can excel in any of them. Even his most churlish critic (which might well be me, as it goes; love me some churl) would struggle to make a meaningful case that Jacques Kallis isn't an ATG test player and remains a very useful T20 performer and T20's leading runmaker, Chris Gayle, is one of only (I think) 4 players to have made more than one test triple century.
The respective rugby codes have less transferable skillsets in certain positions. It'd be pretty much impossible to imagine a classic union prop or lock being a world class league forward because of its uncontested possession. Ditto the crucial (in union) ball scavs like McCaw, Pocock or Back. Whilst all have great hands for union forwards, in league they'd be far more quotidian. Witness the recent abortive attempts to make a union back out of Sam Burgess, who (apparently) has a bit of a rep in the NRL for butterfingers, because of his perceived superior distribution.
I think limiting overs in cricket functions a lot like how League limits tackles. It changes the barometer for success wildly and limits the strategies, and so limits the types of players who can succeed.Would a better comparison be that T20/ODIs are more akin to Rugby Sevens versus Union?
I don't know enough about Rugby, especially League, to meaningfully contribute to this discussion. So I'm not saying the above is my belief. Just a question, and something I think I have seen posed on here before.
Gutted I've retired my Richard persona, this thread was tailor made for it.