full ninety minutes of Zambia's final group stage game, a 1–0 win over Equatorial Guinea on 29 January 2012. The win ensured Zambia's progress to the quarter–finals. Nkausu also played the whole of the 3–0 quarter–final win over Sudan on 4 February 2012, helping Zambia book a semi–final showdown with tournament favourites Ghana, who coach Herve Renard described as "the best team in Africa". Zambia won the semi–final 1–0 to progress to the final of the competition, against Ivory Coast. Nkausu personally had a bad start to the semi–final, giving away a penalty kick just seven minutes into the game for a foul on Ghana's Kwadwo Asamoah. However, Asamoah Gyan missed the penalty and Zambia later won the game thanks to a late goal by Emmanuel Mayuka. After the game, Nkausu led his team–mates in parading the Zambian flag. SuperSport United wished Nkausu luck on the day of the final, with a club statement claiming the Cup final would "certainly be Nkausu's biggest moment of his lifetime". Nkausu started the final at right–back, marking Ivory Coast's Salomon Kalou and later Max Gradel. After a goalless ninety minutes, and with the deadlock still not broken in extra time, the final went to a penalty shoot out. Zambia eventually triumphed 8–7, with Stoppila Sunzu scoring the winning penalty. Some sections of the media criticised Herve Renard for being overly harsh on Nkausu; the manager shoved the defender during the match after he suffered a lapse in concentration and allowed Gervinho to bear down on goal. However, Renard claimed that Nkausu and his team–mates would not have been surprised or angered by the treatment, saying "For you maybe it's incredible for me to react like this, but they know me". Nkausu played in Zambia's 3–1 unofficial friendly defeat of Pretoria Academy on 29 May 2012, the game acting as a warm–up match ahead of the Chipolopolo's 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification games. He made his first international appearance after the African Cup of Nations in a 2–0 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifying defeat to Sudan on 2 June 2012. The defender then featured in Zambia's 1–0 win over Ghana on 9 June, coming on as an injury–time replacement for Chisamba Lungu. Despite having played 90 minutes for SuperSport just three days earlier, Nkausu was part of the Zambian squad that travelled to Seoul on 13 August 2012 for a friendly against South Korea,